Adventure in Nadeshiko
by Emperor Zeref Dragneel
Summary: Naruto and his teammate Sakura are sent on a mission to Nadeshiko Village by order of the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade. This mission enables Sakura to discover what Naruto had revealed to Shizuka about his feelings for her… and when she discovers it, what will she think about her teammate? The boy who was always by her side all this time?
1. Chapter 1

**Adventure in Nadeshiko**

**Full Summary:** Naruto and his teammate Sakura are sent on a mission to Nadeshiko Village by order of the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade. This mission enables Sakura to discover what Naruto had revealed to Shizuka about his feelings for her… and when she discovers it, what will she think about her teammate? The boy who was always by her side all this time?

**Main Pairings: **NaruSaku, nuff said.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto or any of its characters. They belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

_The Feelings of The Two_

Uzumaki Naruto was asleep in his house, an odd factor considering the fact that it was already noon and everyone in the village was already up and bustling. However, he was comfortable in the shelter of his own house. Things were back to normal after the Fourth Shinobi World War, and Naruto could not ask for anything more. He had finally managed to bring back his teammate, Uchiha Sasuke, and the Allied Shinobi Forces had emerged victorious in the war against Uchiha Madara. To put the icing on the cake, Naruto had finally fulfilled his long-standing promise to Sakura-chan, the one he had made years ago whilst the two were still genin and now, things were completely different.

Yes, they were completely different. It wasn't because Sakura was a chuunin now while he and Sasuke still remained genin. No, that was a minuscule matter, since both Naruto and Sasuke had already reached the peak of their abilities whilst in the war. Naruto had unlocked his full potential as Jinchuuriki, while Sasuke had unlocked his full potential as an Uchiha. The two were already stronger than Kakashi and most of the other Jounin in the village at this point; the only person who was on their level was probably the Hokage, Tsunade. What really got to Naruto was the fact that he had brought Sasuke back, and now there was nothing that stood between him and confessing his long-standing love for his pink haired teammate, Haruno Sakura.

Thoughts of the girl filled his head and Naruto turned his head in his sleep. A small smile had broken on his face, and he started wondering why he had fallen so in love with Sakura-chan. Sure enough, she was extremely attractive, her green eyes light a fire in his soul like none he had ever experienced before, and her pink hair added to her boundless beauty. This however, did not mean that she was the prettiest girl in Konoha. Heck, even the Special Jounin, Mitarashi Anko was extremely attractive, and she had a killer rack to brag about. It wasn't anything superficial such as her appearance. Sakura was also strong; in fact she was the second strongest kunoichi in the village after Tsunade. Her medical skills were also something to write home about, since she had unlocked the Byakugou Seal on her forehead in the war, it only added to her strength. Naruto still felt the undying need to always protect her though, even if at that point in time she kept insisting that she was perfectly fine on her own. Still, he rarely left her to her own devices, and it required her own violence to actually keep him away from her long enough for her to carry herself in her own way.

Naruto was in love with Sakura ever since that day on the bench. When her, him and Sasuke had been newly formed as Team Seven, and he disguised himself as Sasuke to go and talk to Sakura. It was at that point that Sakura had confessed to Naruto as "Sasuke" that all she wanted was to be acknowledged by him. That made him realize why he liked her so much. She was the same as him, in that both of the sought acknowledgement, her from the Uchiha and him from the village that had detested him so much since he was a kid. Since that point, Naruto had put his best foot forward and tried to woo the girl. There was some progress, since Naruto had seen her shed tears for him on several occasions, plus how she healed him time and time again even when her chakra levels were dangerously low. However, something in Naruto still told him that he still could do more for her, and this was the thought that kept on pushing him to always stay by her side.

He had decided to confess to her after the war, but once they had returned to the village he simply could not find the time to talk to her in person. This was because she spent most of her time in the hospital healing all the casualties from the war who were from Konoha. They were quite a number, and since Sakura had been promoted to the Head of the Medical Corps, she always had to be in the hospital to oversee the medical care of all the patients. Tsunade herself could not assist her, since she was up to her neck in her duties as Hokage, and could not even spare anytime to go and check up on the villagers. Shizune was able to drop in from time to time to check up on Sakura, but this was likely due to the fact that she had to take back medical reports to Tsunade about the state of the hospital. I fact, Naruto was actually surprised that Sakura was not spending her time with Sasuke, who spent most of his days in the training ground by himself honing his skills more and more. Needless to say Naruto was a bit happy at this, but still he did not find any reason why Sakura had not once talked to Sasuke properly since Naruto had brought him back to the village.

Then just as Naruto was about to brush his thoughts about Sakura away and delve further into his sleep, he heard the knocking on his door. A bit surprised as to who was knocking on his door at this time of the day, he thought that it was one of his friends who had come to hang out with him. A bit irritated since he did not like it when his sleep was cut short, he slowly dragged himself to his door and opened it, his eyes still half-closed. However, the person he met standing on the door surprised him so much that his sleepiness all drifted away.

"Sakura-chan? What are you doing here?" Naruto asked the pink-haired girl who was on his door steps. It wasn't such a misplaced question, since it wasn't exactly the first time that Sakura had been to his house. She had been there before to inform him that he had been summoned by Tsunade in her office. Although at this point in time, there were barely any feuds between the Five Great Nations, plus the Akatsuki had been completely dealt with, therefore the number of missions had considerably lessened. "Naruto, Tsunade-sama sent me to call you. She says there is an emergency and we need to go to her office as soon as possible," Sakura explained to her blonde-haired teammate.

This news sent a jolt down Naruto's spine. The word "emergency" immediately made him think of mission, and it had been an awfully long time since he had been out of the village. He felt like he needed the much desired break from his monotonous lifestyle at the moment, and a small part of him told him that it would help him find a way to deal with his oncoming confession for Sakura. Honestly, he did not have any idea how he would go about confessing his love for her. Of course, he could just go to her and tell her, "Sakura-chan, I have always loved you. Please go out with me." However, something told him that doing this out of the blue would just earn him a punch from Sakura, along with her extremely shocked face afterwards. Pervy Sage had once him once that with a woman you had to set the atmosphere before you confessed, and you had to go about the whole process carefully lest you risk the woman running away from you forever. Still, he had no idea how to do this, so he might have as well seek some inspiration by leaving the village and getting some pointers by observing the environment around him.

"Give me a minute. Lemme get my jacket then I'll be right there," he told Sakura, and immediately he went back into his room and retrieved his jacket which was lying on his bed. Putting it over his white t-shirt, he looked at himself in the mirror carefully to make sure that he looked presentable enough to walk with Sakura in the streets of Konoha. The last thing he wanted to do to her was to embarrass her in the midst of all the villagers who would watch them as they were walking by, so he made sure that his hair was in order and he had brushed his teeth. He had taken a shower that morning, so he did not need another one at that time of the day.

Meanwhile, Haruno Sakura took the time to observe Naruto's living room while she stood at his doorstep waiting for him. "Heeeh, so this time he made sure to clean up properly," She told herself. The last time that she had been to Naruto's place, it was awfully untidy, that Sakura had even seen a cockroach go under his bed. Thus time, however, there were few of his clothes that lay on the ground untouched, and the floor looked as if it had been cleaned hastily. Sakura had been given a break that day from her daily hospital duties, owing to the fact that the number of discharged patients had been increasing slowly by slowly. By this time, the number of patients still in the hospital was more than 20, but luckily enough by the end of the week they would all have been released and gone home. When she had been summoned by Tsunade in her office and told to get Naruto, she happily obliged, since she had missed seeing her friend for so long.

Still, one thing nagged her. When Sai had revealed to her how deeply Naruto loved her, she had been shocked. Shocked since she never thought his feelings for her were that strong, she had always assumed that he sported a silly crush for her owing to the number of times he asked her out on dates and she declined each time. She had thought that he would eventually grow out of the crush, so hearing that he had fallen deeply in love with her made her heart shatter into small pieces. She had treated him so poorly when they were kids, but still he protected her and cherished her. Then he made her a promise that he would return Sasuke back to her, even putting her own feelings for Sasuke above his feelings for her. This made her shed tears of agony; she cried and even told herself that Naruto was foolish enough to love someone like her. Sai had told her that Naruto had not confessed to her yet since he had failed to keep his promise to her, so he felt unworthy of her love. Sasuke had returned to the village already, so Sakura wondered why he had not confessed to her yet. Since the event at the bridge with Yamato, Sakura found herself questioning her feelings for Naruto. _What exactly did she feel for him?_ Sure the two of them were friends, but was that all there was to it? She felt that there was something more, something which she could only discover once he had confessed to her.

"Sakura-chan? What's wrong?" Naruto had finished preparing himself and was standing in front of her at the door. She was caught by surprise, and immediately she shook her head to signify that there was nothing amiss. Naruto took her word for it, and closing the door behind him, the two descended the steps leading to Naruto's house, their destination being the Hokage Tower.

_End_

**A/N: **To be continued.


	2. Finally

**A/N: **Hello all my faithful fans ;) Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows and favorites from chapter 1 of this story. Even if it was just a tip of the iceberg of the entire story, it gave me the psyche to update this story by a day earlier than I normally would have updated it. So here's chapter 2 of **"Adventure in Nadeshiko." Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto.

_Finally Back to Normal_

The blonde haired young man and his pink haired teammate had finally reached the last level of the stairs leading from his apartment. The streets of Konoha were not as full as they normally were, something which puzzled Naruto. He was sure that they would be full of people going up and about their activities, but looking closer he noticed that he could actually count the number of people who were walking on the streets at the looked at his teammate in a way that asked for an answer to this strange situation. Sakura noticed her teammate's stare, so she shook her head and then asked him, "What?" She had a feeling that she knew what Naruto was going to ask, but still it was better not to jump into conclusions too soon.

"Ano, Sakura-chan, why are the streets deserted today? I thought they would be full of people since the war is over and everything is back to normal. Don't tell me everyone is still asleep or something. Wait, that means they are lazier than me! That's a good thing then, right?! Right?!" He implored from his teammate, his eyes beaming in what was pride. Sakura was amused by this antic, since she did not expect Naruto to use this as a chance to praise himself by comparing himself to other people. She smiled a little then said, "You know that doesn't really change anything, Naruto. You're worse than them since you've always been a heavy sleeper, and they just started right now, "she explained a little, then saw Naruto pout a little in disappointment. She chuckled a little, finding further amusement in Naruto's little stunt, but decided to cheer him up a little, "But at least you're dropping that habit, your room looked a lot tidier than it normally does when I dropped by to call you. I hope it stays that way." Naruto's pout slowly turned upwards into a large grin, the grin Sakura had been so used to seeing in their years as a team. She would never tell anyone, of course, but that grin always cheered her up whenever she was having a bad day. It made her look forward to seeing Naruto a lot, and whenever he said anything while having that grin on, it made her believe that anything he wanted to do was possible. Heck, that was the same grin that was on his face when he promised that he would bring Sasuke back to her all those years ago, and even though it took a painfully long amount of time, sweat, blood and tears, he had finally managed to bring Sasuke back to Konoha. Back to his home. Sakura smiled a little, then a small part of her wondered. What if he confessed to her while plastering that grin on her face? Would she accept him, or would she just push him away?

Her thoughts were cut short when she saw a hand in front of her face. "Sakura-chan, are you okay? You look a bit dazed," Naruto asked her, while waving his hand in front of her. A worried look was on his face, and Sakura realized that she had been so caught up in her thoughts that she had momentarily stopped walking. Embarrassed a little, she said, "Oh yeah, sorry I think the heat just got to me a bit." It wasn't entirely false, since the sun was at its peak in the sky, and Sakura knew from her time as a medic that staying in the sun too much could give someone heat stroke. She decided to use it as a leeway, knowing that Naruto had no way of finding out that she had laid. Naruto's worried expression, however, did not leave his face. "Really, Sakura-chan? If you're too hot you can just remove your top-" Naruto stopped momentarily, realizing a moment too late what he had just said. Sakura threw him a death-glare, and Naruto felt a cold sweat break on his body. He remembered that time in the war when he had promised that he would never cross Sakura again after seeing her strength once she had released her **Strength of a Hundred Seal. **He slowly walked backwards, and immediately Sakura hit the ground where he had previously stood, leaving a small crater in her wake.

"NARUTO!HOW DARE YOU TELL ME TO REMOVE MY TOP?! IF YOU WANT TO SEE ME NAKED I SWEAR TO KAMI THAT IS THE LAST THING YOU WILL EVER SAY AND SEE!" Sakura shouted at him while chasing him. Naruto, who did not desire to be on the end of Sakura's wrath, ran as quickly as he could, while apologizing profusely," I'm sorry Sakura-chan I didn't mean to! I was just trying to make you feel better!" "LIAR! YOU'RE JUST A PERVERT AND I SWEAR TO KAMI IF I CATCH YOU YOU'LL WISH YOU NEVER LEFT THE HOUSE WITH ME!" Sakura added on, but somewhere within her she felt herself laughing. It had been long, too long actually, since she had felt herself being so free with her teammate, and having a good laugh. She had been cooped up too long in the hospital for her own good, realizing that in there the only thing she ever heard were the screams and moans of patients, plus instructions and reports from her workmates. But here, with Naruto, she could be herself, and have a good laugh without having a care in the world of who saw her. Kakashi, Sai and Yamato had all seen how she had acted around Naruto, and although they were taken aback at first, they all remarked that Naruto always managed to bring out her true self. Suddenly, she saw Naruto stopping, and stopped herself too. The anger she had before was replaced by a feeling of surprise.

Slowly, Naruto turned to her, before smiling and saying to her, "Actually, you know I wouldn't mind dying if you were the one who did it, Sakura-chan." Sakura had a perplexed look on her face, so she relaxed her fist, before looking at the man who was in front of her. "Oh and why is that?" she inquired, expecting to land a punch on the man for any ridiculous answer he would give out. "Because I know Sakura-chan will pump my heart and bring me back to life!" Naruto joyfully exclaimed, grinning widely at Sakura-chan. Sakura was taken aback completely by this answer, and the look she gave Naruto was one of amazement. "What's with that look, Sakura-chan?" This time it was Naruto the one to ask her. Sakura's memories went back to the time of the war, when Naruto had lost Kurama to Uchiha Madara. Sakura remembered the distress she felt when Gaara brought back Naruto's dying body to her and Tsunade. She was so shocked that Naruto had ended up like that, since she had put so much faith in him. She had always thought that Naruto would never end up in a condition like that, and immediately began her attempts to revive him. Her chakra ran out midway through the process, and she resorted to manually pumping his heart, while giving him CPR. Eventually, it was the combined efforts of Minato and Obito which managed to bring back Naruto, and Sakura thanked Obito, even though she knew he was an enemy. She did not expect Naruto to have found out about that and bring it up in a situation like this, so she slowly opened her mouth to say what she thought was best in that situation.

"Y-you….how did you know….?" Sakura stuttered, and she felt her cheeks turning red due to embarrassment. The more she thought about that situation, the more and more it seemed to her from another perspective that she had in a way "kissed" Naruto. Even if technically it was her job as a medic and his teammate, she had not noticed it, but back then she had tasted Naruto's lips. It was an odd thing, since in a way he had taken her first kiss, albeit unknowingly. Naruto looked at her pensively then said, "Oh, that? After the war was over I went to Sunagakure to have a talk with Gaara and exchange a cup of sake with him." Sakura immediately interjected," Sake? Naruto you took sake?! But… you just turned 18!" Her worry, of course, was not exactly misplaced; she just did not want to see Naruto turn into a drunk like her master, Tsunade. "It was just a small request that Gaara had made when I met him after I was revived. He said we should exchange a cup of sake once I became Hokage, but seems like he couldn't wait. The first thing he did when I got there was welcome me with open arms and offer me a cup of sake. Then while we were just talking and catching up on recent stuff, he told me about how you were so determined to save me that you pumped my heart with your bare hands and even gave me CPR," Naruto calmly explained to Sakura. The surprise that was on Sakura's face lessened a little, but Naruto continued, " Ahh, I wish I was conscious back then, then I could have tasted Sakura-chan's lips. She tasted mine but I can't even remember what hers tasted like."

A blush immediately broke out on Sakura's face, and she turned beet red in embarrassment. "Hmph, t-that's a good thing then. Besides all I could taste was ramen, so it isn't really something that new, "she tried to defend herself. Naruto smirked at her. "See! You do remember! Well now I can confidently claim that I've taken Sakura-chan's first kiss. Lucky!" Naruto remarked while his whole face beamed with happiness. Sakura, meanwhile, noticed the red on her cheeks had not faded, and she hoped that Naruto would not notice it while he remained in his blissful state. " Don't be too happy ,you idiot! That was only once! Either way let's get going, we'll be late in getting to Tsunade-sama's office." Sakura said, hoping that this would get Naruto's attention away from the fact that in a way, he had taken Sakura's first kiss.

Naruto replied, "Oh! I almost forgot about that. But first before we do that, we need to take care of Sakura-chan's heatstroke. Sakura chuckled, since he did not expect that he was still hung up on that fact. She was about to object and say that she was quite okay and he didn't need to make a mountain of a molehill out of her "heatstroke", but Naruto immediately stopped her by telling her," Wait just a moment, Sakura-chan. I'll be right back. Make sure not to move from here, okay?" She nodded, and immediately Naruto dashed away like a man possessed. Sakura moved to the fence and leaned her back against it, deciding that it would give her a chance to relax. She had used more energy than she had expected chasing after Naruto earlier. Wondering where Naruto had gone to, Sakura looked at the sky, deciding that it would help her clear her mind about what had happened. What Naruto had revealed to her earlier about knowing that she had put all her best efforts into healing him had struck her like a bombshell. Naruto joyfully exclaiming that he had stolen her first kiss was indeed flattering, and she decided not to take it seriously, but somewhere in her heart, she wanted to believe it had really happened. After all, she did remember tasting his lips and they did indeed taste like ramen, but contrary to what she had thought about ramen before, she noticed that she did not mind the taste at all. _I wouldn't mind tasting it again, _she thought to herself.

True to his word, Naruto showed up again almost five minutes later, which Sakura thanked the heavens for since she would not have time to dwell on what she had just thought to herself mere moments before he had showed up. In his hand, she noticed that he was carrying a small white paper, and she wondered what was inside the bag, before he reached out inside the bag and pulled out a white stick that had been wrapped up at the end with a soft paper. The paper was slightly moist, and Sakura immediately realized that it was ice cream. Her heart was filled with warmth, since she honestly had not expected Naruto to get her ice cream simply because she had lied to him about having heatstroke earlier. "Sorry it took a while. But I got you this. I hope it makes you feel better, Sakura-chan," Naruto said, handing her the ice cream. Sakura sighed a little. There it was that genuine and honest care for her well-being. Sakura used to dismiss it as Naruto being a generally good-natured person, but ever since Sai revealed to her the extents to which Naruto goes to make her happy, she could simply not ignore it anymore. The man had genuinely fallen in love with her. Sakura felt her heart being weighed down by sadness, a sadness that stemmed from the fact that she had never noticed, yet Sai was only a member for a few months, and he had picked up on Naruto's feelings for Sakura. She extended her arm and reached out for the ice cream, while saying, "Thank you, Naruto." Then it happened.

She felt the tips of her fingers brush against Naruto's fingers, and suddenly something jolted throughout her entire body. Naruto felt something similar jolt throughout his body, and immediately he got embarrassed and withdrew his hand. Of course he had held Sakura's hand before, but this time things felt a bit different. It was in such a casual setting, and he realized that it had been a long time since him and Sakura had actually managed to spend time together like this without anything or anyone interfering. They were the only two people in the world at the moment. Sakura quickly drew the ice cream stick away from Naruto, and before she removed its wrapping it she heard him saying, "Make sure you finish that soon, Sakura-chan. Or else the sun will make it melt and it will stain your top. And then now you'll really be forced to remove your top since I doubt you'll want to walk in Konoha while there is a stain on your clothes." Sakura smiled a little, realizing that the anger she felt at his former statement regarding her removing her top due to the overbearing heat had all but disappeared. "I know, thanks again," she remarked, and the two set out for the Hokage Tower once again.

As they were walking Sakura realized that she had been taken completely off-topic, so she decided to resume her earlier explanation to Naruto. "As I was saying earlier, Naruto, "she made sure to put extra emphasis on his name so that he would not think of interrupting her this time, and after hearing the gulp that came from him, she sighed satisfactorily before continuing, "the reason why the streets are deserted is because most people are spending time with their families after the war. You realize most of the shinobi who were in the war had left their families back here in the village, so since most of them came back bruised and battered, their families were so happy that they had returned, so they are making sure that they spend as much time as possible with their families." She explained while taking a bite out of her ice-cream. It was really cold, but Sakura realized that she needed the cool down after spending most of her time in the hospital and away from the outside world for quite some time now. Naruto nodded, and then he realized that he had not asked Sakura something important, something that he had not asked her in a while now. "By the way Sakura-chan, how are things in the hospital going? I realized that I haven't been seeing much of you so I guess it must be really tough huh?" Naruto inquired, while looking at Sakura as she ate away at her ice cream. He realized just how beautiful she looked as she gracefully took in each and every bite. The ice cream left wet trails on her lips, and as she licked them away slowly, Naruto noticed his growing curiosity to find out what her lips tasted like. Maybe they tasted like that strawberry flavored ice cream she was currently helping herself too. Naruto shook his head to clear his mind of the thoughts he was currently having, realizing that it wasn't a good idea to think that at such a time.

"It was a bit taxing at first, due to the large influx of patients that were being admitted due to the war's aftermath, but at least it's getting better and better of late. More and more patients are being discharged, and luckily enough less than five have actually passed away in the midst of surgery," Sakura began explaining, but soon her faced changed into a rather gloomy expression. Naruto did not need to be told what it meant. He realized that for a doctor, failure was a terrible thing to experience whilst at work, and this involved the loss of a patient. More so, losing a patient after putting all of one's efforts into saving the said patient's life, and it still wouldn't be enough. He moved his hand and slowly patted the small of Sakura's back, in an effort to cheer her up. Sakura looked up into his sky blue eyes, and weakly smiled back at him, before resuming her earlier explanation," Sorry about that, Naruto, I got a bit carried away. The number of patients has decreased, and now I think there are less than 20 who are still admitted in the hospital. Hopefully by the end of the week, all of them will have been discharged, and then finally I can get a good rest after working non-stop all those hours," Sakura concluded. Naruto withdrew his hand from her back, and then gave her thumbs up before saying, "Go go Sakura-chan! Make sure that you finish soon so that I can go on a date with you!"

Sakura sighed a little before saying, " Naruto, you do realize that you might probably be away on your mission by the time that I'm finished at the hospital, so how exactly will you manage to ask me out on a date?" Naruto gasped in shock, and said, "Oh no, you're right! Well then I guess that I better hurry up with my mission so that when I get back I can give you all the time in the world!" He stopped talking momentarily, and realized the magnitude of the words he had said. Sure he would give Sakura-chan all the time in the world if he had the chance, but there was still one issue that he was not sure was still standing in his way. _Him._ Naruto's thoughts immediately switched to a dark-haired Uchiha, and he realized that Sakura might prefer to spend time with Uchiha Sasuke rather than with him. He was a bit disheartened by this fact, but decided that he could give himself hope by the fact that Sakura did not seem interested in Sasuke at the moment. This could be due to the fact that she had been caught up in her work, but still, she was spending time with him, right here and right now. That had to mean something, right? Following this train of thoughts, Naruto asked Sakura, "Sakura-chan, where's Sasuke right now?" The question itself wasn't wrong, since Naruto had genuinely not seen much of his best friend once he had come back to Konoha. He had only caught glimpses of him once or twice in the streets of Konoha, and even though Naruto had tried calling out to him, he did not respond. This wasn't exactly foreign since Sasuke did not exactly tend to be all chummy with his friends, but the look that Naruto had seen on his face both times had indicated that he had been very busy. Naruto assumed that he was probably heading out on missions or something akin to that, but something in his gut told him that it was something more.

"Oh, you didn't hear? Well that serves you right since you spend all your time cooped up in your house sleeping and eating ramen," Sakura reprimanded him, "Tsunade-sama put Sasuke-kun in charge of the ANBU." Naruto's eyes almost popped out of their sockets at this revelation. "SHE WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTT?" It was his turn to now shout at Sakura, and she had to hold her hands in front of her to calm him down. After he had stopped shouting, Sakura noticed that he still looked visibly shocked, so she decided to explain, "Well, you know that the Uchiha were in charge of the police force before their demise, right?" Naruto nodded, since Tobi had explained this to him when he had told him, Kakashi and Yamato at the land of iron, while he told them the truth about Uchiha Itachi. "Tsunade-sama decided that punishing Sasuke-kun for his crimes would not be nearly enough, so she decided to place him in the ANBU, and made him a unit leader. She said that even if Sasuke was an international criminal, he was still an outstanding prodigy so it would be better if his skills were put in service of the village. Makes sense now?" Naruto took in every word that Sakura said slowly, and realized that it all made perfect sense now. The police force were no longer, and it would be a bit difficult reviving them with only one Uchiha remaining, so it fits better to put him in an ANBU unit, since they were akin to a police force of the village. In his head an image of Sasuke wearing an ANBU outfit popped up and he laughed a little of how ridiculous it looked.

It was then that Naruto had realized just how cut off from the world he had been in all the weeks after the war, and he was so grateful that Sakura was here with him now. He desired to learn more and more about his team and friends, so he quickly added on, "What about Sai and Kakashi-sensei? How are they doing these days?" "Oh, Kakashi-sensei is sort of like Sasuke's mentor in the ANBU. Well, even though he doesn't exactly go out on missions with them, he gives Sasuke pointers once in a while, and the two of them spend their free time honing each other's skills in the training grounds." Naruto nodded, and realized that due to his sensei's lazy nature, such a job actually fit him perfectly. Sakura continued, " Sai became Root's leader, and now they've been recognized as an official body of Konoha by Tsunade-sama. They don't exactly work hand-in-hand with the ANBU, but still they get their fair share of espionage missions and assassination missions, so I think that Sai is doing pretty well. He was Danzo's top agent, so there wasn't really much fracas when he was appointed leader. Everyone accepted him without question. Unlike with Sasuke-kun, where there are still some people in his unit who don't want to accept him as a leader. So he has to work hard for their acknowledgement," Sakura concluded. Naruto nodded, realizing that he was actually happy that Sai had finally found his place in Root. He wasn't too happy with how some of the treatment that Sasuke was getting, but he realized that it was understandable, so he decided to let it slide. Sakura finished the last portion of her ice cream, and looked at Naruto appreciatively, before letting her arm that was catching the ice cream previously fall to her side. Naruto, who was looking at her intently, did not miss that.

Immediately, he felt a desire to hold her hand in his. It looked so soft, and he realized just how it would fit perfectly into his. He was certainly no stranger to holding a girl's hand before, having held Hinata's hand in the war to transfer Kurama's chakra into her. But still, something held him back. Was it because this was the girl who he had adored, and yearned for nearly all his life? Making such a bold move here would be the first step to him finally confessing his undying love for her, but was it really worth it? How would Sakura herself perceive this action? Would she let him hold her hand, and let him walk hand-in-hand with him? Or would she simply brush his hand away and continue walking nonchalantly to the Hokage Tower. Naruto decided that such a question was better answered if he actually made a step forward, so slowly, he raised his arm…..

**A/N: To be continued. **Make sure to read and review guys ;)


	3. Mission Start!

**A/N: **Well hello again guys and here comes Chapter 3 of "Adventures in Nadeshiko." Before I begin this chapter I'd like to thank all the guys who've reviewed, followed and favorite my story. Really, thanks so much for all the support and I promise that I will continue updating more and more epic chapters that will leave all you guys in awe. So without further ado, here is Chapter 3 entitled "Mission Start!"

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

_Mission Start!_

Naruto's hand slowly made its way to Sakura's hand, which was swaying slowly on her sides. On closer look, he noticed that it was creamy, and as soft as a feather, unlike his rough hand that had been torn up time and time again from the many battles he found himself in. This was probably caused by Sakura spending most of her time in the hospital healing patients, and it had been a really long time since she had been out in the field to battle.

His gaze shifted to Sakura's face, and with a bit of relief, she had not caught up on what he was trying to do. Naruto remembered with a sinking feeling in his stomach that Sakura would probably sock him in the head if she realized that he was trying to touch her hand, but a small part of him hoped that she would take the gesture positively and allow him to hold her hand, even If it was only for a short amount of time.

He did not notice the small tinge of red that had appeared on Haruno Sakura's face.

Naruto felt the warmth emanating from Sakura's hand, and a small smile began emerging on his face. Maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't turn out to be so bad after all. He felt the tips of his fingertips making contact with Sakura's palm, and was about to adjust his hand to get a better hold of hers… then…

"How are you, Sakura-sama?" A voice suddenly interrupted the tranquil silence that the two teammates were currently enjoying.

And with that, Sakura's right hand moved to brush a lock of her hair past her ear to get a better look at the person who had just given her the greeting.

"Good morning, Izumo-san. Kotetsu-san too," Sakura greeted the two jounin. Naruto looked, with obvious dismay in his expression, at the two people who had just appeared to intrude on the moment that he was having with the girl he loved.

"And you too, Uzumaki Naruto-sama. Not that it's any of my business though, but Naruto-sama, what are you doing?" Kotetsu Hagane inquired of the blonde young man. And true enough his question was necessary in the situation.

Naruto's hand had lain suspended in the air near Sakura's waist, having been the position where her right hand was relaxing a few moments before, which could have made any passersby, wonder what the hell he was doing. It was as clear as day that he was planning to touch Sakura's waist, and possibly, pull her closer to him as the two walked together towards the Hokage's building. Luckily enough, for him, and for Sakura too, the streets had been deserted that particular day, so the only people in the vicinity were Kotetsu and Izumo.

The red on his cheeks growing brighter from the faint shade that it had been moments before when his hand had brushed Sakura's, he quickly pulled his hand backwards and then put it on the back of his head, scratching it sheepishly. He then turned to the two jounin, before saying, "Oh, that was nothing really. I was trying to scratch my head since a bug had flow into my hair and it tickled a lot. Really, nothing big." Naruto explained as quickly as he could, hoping to Kami that his excuse would fly past the head of the two jounin. Well, he wasn't called the number one most unpredictable ninja for nothing. It was summer after all, and summer meant that there were many bugs in the air, so it was actually an argument that carried a lot of water.

Kotetsu stared at him serenely for a second, before opening his mouth and saying, "Well, if you say so then. It looked like a completely different thing to me though, and it would to a lot of other people too." _That's not what I was trying to do, damn it,_ Naruto thought in his mind, but did not voice his thoughts lest he would be considered a pervert in the eyes of the two jounin. "Luckily enough, Sakura-sama here did not notice what you were doing, or you would be in a world of pain."

Surprisingly enough, Naruto had not noticed Sakura's expression throughout the entire debacle, and this statement from the dark haired man made him realize that the girl was still there. With a sweat drop on his face, he slowly turned his head to face the girl, ready to face her wrath due to the misunderstanding that he had just caused with her. His eyes came to rest on Sakura's visage, and he noticed, with a huge sigh of relief, that she still maintained the same stern expression that her face had adorned when she had said hi to the two jounin.

He would not know that the thought of him holding her by the waist, excited her a little in her heart. At least not yet anyway.

The truth was, Sakura had known for a while that Naruto was trying to hold her hand, having noticed the odd silence that had embraced the air after the incident with the ice cream. However, she did not want to alert him too much that she was quite well aware of his intentions, so she decided to play along with his wishes, since a part of her had been conflicted with her feelings for the blonde young man for a while now.

At first she had wondered what his lips would taste like after the incident with the CPR In the war, and now there was this. She wondered what his hands felt like. Of course, she had held Naruto's hand before, such as with the incident on The Heaven and Earth Bridge, but at that time they had been so focused on catching up to Sai and locating Orochimaru's hideout that she really hadn't paid attention too much to what she had done. Now that she remembered it, she really had made physical contact with Naruto plenty of times, but the feeling had all but vanished in her body.

Now here Naruto was again, trying to hold her hand, and she found herself willing to let him do it. He deserved it; after all, after all he had been through for her, so she would let him do it just this once. However, once Naruto's hand had come so closely dangerous to hers, she felt a small blush creeping up on her cheeks, something that she had never experienced before with Naruto. About to allow him to continue in his quest to touch her, she saw that they had already arrived outside the door to the Hokage Building, and standing just outside it were the two guards, Hagane Kotetsu and Izumo Kamizuki.

Of course, Sakura had been no stranger to the two jounin, who were recently promoted from Chuunin rank. She remembered distinctly how the two of them, alongside Ino, Shikamaru, Choji and Aoba Yamashiro, and a group of other jounin and chuunin, had arrived in the village a long time ago with the devastating news of Asuma Sarutobi's death. Before that, the two of them had spent time on the gate as guards, so that was one of the few times they actually got hands-on experience in the field. However, all that changed after the Fourth Shinobi World War.

Due to the role of the two in keeping the village safe from any external threats while most of the shinobi were away fighting Kabuto and Tobi, once Tsunade had returned to the village and resumed her normal duties, she felt it prudent to promote them to jounin and to also station them as guards outside the Hokage building. Well, the first time they had heard this news, they were a bit exasperated as to why they had been given a promotion all of a sudden, but hey, it did beat lazing around in front of the gate all day while nothing of much interest occurred on the outskirts of Konoha. So after a few moments worth of thinking, the two of them gladly accepted their new posts and moved to the Hokage building.

It went without saying that obviously on this side of Konoha, security was more of a grave issue since they were protecting the leader of the village. While it was obvious that she could protect herself just fine even without the help of jounin or even the ANBU, they still had to keep their guard up at all times, lest they were demoted and restored to their original positions. So once the two of them had got wind of a pair of footsteps slowly approaching the Hokage's tower, their gaze shifted to the two newcomers who had just showed up, with their senses heightened for anything. After all, the most ideal time to attack or infiltrate a village would be when it was in the process of a relative peace, proven all those years ago when Uchiha Itachi and his partner, Hoshigaki Kisame,had infiltrated the village in an attempt to capture Naruto.

Thank Kami that Sakura still had the mind to observe her environment even while her insides were baffled as to what Naruto was trying to do to her, she noticed that they were no longer alone, so she quickly withdrew her hand in a fake pretense of drawing her hair back. Being seen by the Hokage's personal guards holding hands with her longtime friend and teammate, who she had been through thick and thin, was definitely cause for Tsunade to tease her immensely once the news had reached her ears. Tsunade aside, her assistant Shizune probably wouldn't let her have a moment of peace while giving Sakura advice about relationships and boys. Not really all that surprising considering the fact that Shizune spent a lot of her time warning Tsunade about how her drinking habits would give her liver problems one day.

And all because of a simple hand hold. Sakura swore under her breath, realizing just how obnoxious adults could be over trifling matters that didn't even concern them. She then realized that her parents would let her have it while asking how far she had gone with the young Uzumaki, and if there were plans for something more. She then realized how lucky she was that her parents had not learned of the feelings that she held for Sasuke since they would probably edge her on, telling her that she would be the luckiest girl marrying into Konoha's strongest clan.

Feelings that she was not sure about anymore, partly because of all that Sasuke had put her through, and of all that Naruto had done for her, ever since they were kids.

Sakura saw Naruto's dejected face as he stared down at Izumo and Kotetsu, and realized that he probably had gotten the wrong idea about what she had just done. She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, and made a mental note to make it up to him later. It was the least she could do after all, since he had just bought her ice cream after seeing her for the first time in a really long time apart.

There would be probably be many more chances after this that the two would be together alone, especially considering the fact that Sasuke had been separated from the duo after being posted in the ANBU, alongside Kakashi. Sai himself had been made the head of ROOT, and Yamato had resumed his former duties as one of Tsunade's ANBU members, meaning the two of them were the only active remaining members of Team Seven.

It wasn't really a bad thing, Sakura thought, since even Tsunade-sama had told her that the two had already become of age, so they really didn't need a Jounin-sensei anymore. They could handle themselves just fine at that point, and Sakura thought, _Maybe, just maybe, even our relationship could bud into something more._ _Right, Naruto?_

Naruto and Sakura, after their greetings to the two, walked forward and stepped onto the first stair of the Hokage building. It was then that Naruto realized just how long it had been since he had been to see Tsunade in her office, and he felt a sudden surge of affection welling up inside him for the blonde, beautiful lady. It was only because of her that things were like they currently were with Sasuke, and he would be forever grateful to her for that. Feeling a little bad that he hadn't been to see her as often as he used to when he used to barge in her office asking for a mission, the pace in his steps increased and he suddenly found himself in the corridor of the main buildings.

"Naruto, wait up!" Sakura called out to him, calling him out of his current train of thoughts. She appeared from the other side of the corridor, and Naruto realized just how he had been caught up in his thoughts about meeting with Tsunade again that he had almost left Sakura behind. Feeling a bit guilty, he stopped to let her catch up with him. Once the pink head had reached him, she allowed herself a minute to catch her breath, before looking at Naruto, who was looking at her with genuine worry in his eyes.

"Sorry about that, Sakura-chan. I was just caught up in my thoughts of seeing Grandma Tsunade again. It's been an awfully long amount of time, after all," Naruto apologized to Sakura. She steadied herself up, and put her arm on her hip, before smiling at him and saying, "Oh you, I get you're excited and all, but remember not all of us can keep up with you. Just keep calm. You do realize she's not really going anywhere even if we walk there at a snail's pace, right?" Honestly, sometimes she just didn't know what she was going to do with the blonde idiot.

"Hehe, you're right about that. Okay then, you lead the way, Sakura-chan."

"Baka. Let's just walk there at the same pace. Makes it more fun after all, right?"

Naruto then let Sakura appear at his side, and the two began walking to the front office, which was now visible to them.

"Ne, ne, Sakura-chan, back then, why did those guys call you Sakura-sama, and me Uzumaki Naruto-sama? I didn't expect to be called that by people from my own village, I don't think I've really done anything that praiseworthy to be called –sama, don't you think?" Naruto asked his teammate. Honestly, he had not expected to be addressed by such an honorific by people who were of n even higher rank than him. While yes, he was indeed stronger than them, still, that did not bridge the gap of respect that had been between the different levels of shinobi in the village.

Sakura looked at Naruto curiously to see whether he had been pulling her leg, or simply trying to act humble, but the look in his eyes simply said it all. He was indeed clueless of the situation that was in the village and even in the Five Great Ninja Nations for a while now. Honestly, he was too honest for his own good, and one could easily read his expressions and emotions simply by looking at his eyes. Well, that was one of his good traits, Sakura realized, so she decided to break the big news to him.

"Oh, you haven't heard about it. Well, no wonder. Sasuke-kun, Kakashi-sensei and I were already told about it, so I guess it's time for you to learn about it too."

"Learn about what, Sakura-chan?" A curious Naruto kept his eyes locked on her, cerulean eyes meeting emerald eyes.

"Well, the thing is, after the war, after everyone was freed from the Infinite Tsukoyomi, Kakashi-sensei informed Tsunade-sama about everything that had transpired once everyone had been caught in the Infinite Tsukoyomi. Well, that included the fight with Madara, then what happened with Kaguya, and how Team 7 had teamed up to defeat the world's biggest foe, and Sasuke-kun and Naruto fighting, and how they both worked together to dispel the Infinite Tsukoyomi. "

"I see, and?" Naruto pressed on, honestly bewildered as to why people would start calling him by "-sama" after such an event. He was simply doing his duty as a shinobi, so there was no need for such a drastic change in events.

Sakura shook her head, before saying, "Oh Naruto, don't you see where I'm heading to. Obviously Tsunade-sama could not keep quiet about such an important issue since it involved the entire Ninja World, so she called for an emergency Five Kage Summit, and informed the rest of the Kage about what we had just accomplished. Of course, they were all a bit furious at first that they had to be saved by Konoha and a bunch of brats, but after a consensus they all agreed that we would be considered heroes from that day onward, meaning all the ninja villages were supposed to treat as with the utmost respect. Just like how Kakashi-sensei's dad was referred to as The White Fang, plus your dad was referred to as The Yellow Flash, even before he became the Fourth Hokage. You see?"

Naruto listened to the entire story with a keen expression on his face, honestly having not expected things to have been elevated to that status. Sure, he had saved the world, alongside Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei, but really it was out of a selfless act for the future, not for the mere sake of getting flashy names added to them.

"B-but Sakura-chan- "he began to protest and Sakura shook her head again. She must have expected this already, since Naruto was already too selfless for his own good to accept such things from other people. Well, he was that kind of an idiot after all, Sakura thought, so before he said anything else, she placed a finger on his lips.

His breath felt hot on her finger, and she felt a bit embarrassed as to the bold action she had just taken, but hey, she had locked lips with him before (albeit unintentionally but in a literal sense yes), right? Obviously this was just the tip of the iceberg to her, so she didn't have to feel this flustered. Yet she still did? Why was that though? Again, Naruto was making her heart flutter wildly and she had no idea what exactly about him was causing this sudden rush of emotions from within her, but she used her willpower to fight against it.

"Come on Naruto, the decision has been made, and I don't think even you can overturn a collective decision made by the Five Kage," Sakura silenced her teammate.

"Oh yeah, watch me!" Naruto shouted. His voice carried unwavering doubt and a great sense of confidence; the same voice with which he had promised to bring back Sasuke, and here he was again in the village, safe and sound. For a moment, Sakura wanted to believe that he could really do it, but there was more fun in challenging him than just making him go straight for it.

She released her finger from his lips, and Naruto almost regretted savoring the sweet scent that it had carried. However, Sakura spoke up as soon as he had finished his statement, "You know what, Naruto?" She took a closer step to him. Staring at him, her emerald eyes staring into his cerulean blue eyes, with the same fire that she had looked at him once she had laid down her resolve to fight alongside him and Sasuke in the war, as she was also a member of Team Seven and trained by one of the Legendary Sannin just like her two male teammates. For a second, Naruto thought about planting a small kiss on her lips, but he withheld the desire, since it was neither the time nor place for such an intimate act. Those eyes that carried so much in them and were one of the reasons that Naruto had fallen so hard for her in the first place. "I'd like to see you try." She finished her earlier statement.

Naruto's eyebrows slowly rose in surprise, and he could not help but feel impressed at the challenge that Sakura had just bequeathed on him. So he pumped his fist in the air and said, "Believe me, I will. "

The two realized that they had reached the door to Tsunade's office, and after a knock from Sakura, they heard the indignant sound of Tsunade from within, asking the two ninja to enter the room.

Before Sakura had reached the door knob to pull it open, however, she immediately felt a gust of wind on her entire body, before realizing that he had already wrenched the door open and was well on his way to Tsunade's desk. Sakura just stood dumbfounded at the door; slightly smiling to herself, amused by the amount of enthusiasm Naruto was displaying just to see the Hokage again. Before realizing that she was completely wrong, owing to the grim expression on Naruto's face. Remembering what they had just discussed outside the office, she realized that Naruto was probably intent on changing that whole "hero" status that he and his Team had been anointed, so she quickly charged in after her blonde teammate.

"Naruto, wait!" She said, stretching out her hand ready to hold him before he shouted at Tsunade or did something irrational. She had only challenged him on a whim, seriously not expecting that he would not take it at all. Even if he was a village hero and the son of The Fourth Hokage, there were things that he could and could not do.

But it was too late. Naruto had already slammed both of his hands onto Tsunade's desk. The elderly woman looked up from her position on the other side, having set her eyes keenly on a parchment and being barely unfazed by Naruto's sudden appearance.

"Baa-chan, we need to talk."

Tsunade slowly put down the scroll she had been studying so intently for the past few minutes.

"Yes, we really need to. You guys are late."

"This is about- Wait what?" A surprised Naruto asked, having caught wind of Tsunade's last statement.

Behind him, a cold sweat broke out on Sakura's body. She was well aware of Tsunade's temper, having been on the receiving end of it several times during her years of training with the older woman. One thing that one was always supposed to remember was never to be late to an appointment with the female Hokage.

"You guys are late by over half an hour."

Naruto immediately realized that the older woman was pissed off by the way she said this statement slowly, so he sheepishly put his hand behind his head and said.

"Hehe, uum, and ooh we got lost on the Road of Life?"

Sakura face palmed behind him. Seriously, using one of Kakashi's most common excuses in such a situation was like adding oil to the fire. She swung her head in shame and prepared herself to hear the sound of crashing and contact with the wall of the office.

"Really, Naruto? Using that cliché on me?"

"Hey, at least I tried! Unless you want me to say that we took a detour and I had to buy Sakura-chan ice cream because of the damn heat!"

Sakura's blush immediately crept up on to her cheeks, faster than it had even during the day. There it was, the cat was out of the bag.

For a second, all the anger that was building up within Tsunade after what seemed like forever waiting for Naruto and Sakura to show up vanished. She turned to look at Sakura, who had still been keeping her distance from Naruto once the two had entered the room.

"Sakura, is this true?"

Sakura meekly nodded, and then raised her head to meet the brown eyes of her master. Tsunade was smiling a little, having found amusement in what Naruto had just revealed to her.

The blonde woman had known for a long time now the feelings which Naruto held for his pink-haired teammate. It was clearly evident that day in the hospital ages ago when Tsunade had first set foot into Konoha after the death of her lover, Dan Kato. Of course she had just come to be inaugurated as the Fifth Hokage, but due to Naruto's constant bickering and persistence, she had first set foot for the Konoha Hospital, where Sasuke lay after his devastating defeat at the hands of his brother, Uchiha Itachi. Of course, Tsunade was not known as the world's greatest Medical Ninja for nothing. She made quick work of Sasuke's injuries, and within seconds the young, raven-haired man was seated wide awake in the hospital bed.

Sakura immediately rushed to his side, tears in her eyes, as she wrapped her arms around the young man and began sobbing into his shoulder out of relief. Tears of joy slid down her cheeks and Naruto watched the whole scene o=unfold before him like it was straight out of his worst nightmares. "Sasuke,you-" Naruto started, his eyes closed and a forced smile making its way onto his cheeks. No, he couldn't allow them to see he was hurting, allow her to see he was hurting, since Sasuke had just made a full recovery and Sakura was overjoyed to see him up and kicking again. She was happy, and that was all that mattered. So Naruto slowly turned his back to the residents of the room, and dragged his feet until he had opened the door and exited the room. Unknown to him, Tsunade was watching him the whole time, and once he had his back turned to them and his face downwards in sorrow and grief, she felt a soft smile on her cheeks, and then said, "Hmm, so he can be pretty sensitive sometimes."

Since that day, it had been blatantly obvious to her that Uzumaki Naruto was in love with Haruno Sakura, a relationship that mirrored that between her and her late teammate, Jiraiya. Jiraiya loved Tsunade, even whilst she was still in love with Dan. His feelings hadn't changed; up to even the last time she spent time with him on that bench before he left to face his untimely death in Amegakure at the hands of the Akatsuki Leader, Pain.

Now here stood Naruto, and still, after all that time he retained the same feelings for his teammate that he had always held in his heart. Hearing that he had bought Sakura ice-cream made Tsunade realize that his heart still belonged to her after all that time, and she couldn't help but be filled with nothing with respect for the man. It wasn't easy loving someone who you knew loved someone else, but what made it absolutely wonderful was if you were still willing to be there for them, no matter how painful it was. Naruto was living proof of that, and Tsunade felt herself rooting for the young man somewhere in her heart.

Tsunade looked at the two teammates before her, and then lowered her head in thought, before proceeding to face them again. However, Naruto began speaking again; taking the moment she had fallen quiet as an opening to speak up again.

"Baa-chan, before anything else, there's something I want to discuss with you."

"I know Naruto, and my answer to whatever you're going to ask is no."

Naruto's mouth opened wide in shock, and he stared at Tsunade as if she had just contracted the Chakra virus.

"I haven't even said anything yet!" The blonde ninja protested.

"That's the thing, Naruto. You ought to be careful of how loudly you talk while within this building. These walls have ears, you know."

Tsunade smirked at the young man, and Sakura giggled behind her. So that was what it was. Naruto had been a bit too loud in talking to Sakura while they were just outside Tsunade's office, and unluckily for him, Tsunade had managed to catch wind of everything that he had just told Sakura. Of course, that included the bit about revoking the decision of the Five Kage to refer to him, Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi as "heroes."

Sakura made a mental note to tease Naruto about this later on while the two were alone.

The pinkette then turned to her master, and spoke up for the first time since she had entered the vicinity of that room.

"Tsunade-sama, what are the details of the mission that we are supposed to set out on?"

Tsunade thanked Kami that there was one more sane person in that room apart from her, since she was dead sure that Naruto would have pressed the matter that he had till she got a headache.

"Ah, yes. Your mission." She picked up the scroll that she had been holding before being interrupted, and then skimmed through it one last time before turning to Naruto, placing her hands on her head.

"Okay, this is going to be a bit tricky. I don't know where to start."

Sakura looked in surprise at her master, and then replied, "Try and explain it to us in more detail then."

"Okay, but this is a matter that Naruto is more familiar with since he has had previous contact with the client, well, in unique circumstances, if I do say so myself."

It was Naruto's turn to look at Tsunade in surprise.

"Unique? What do you mean by unique, Baa-chan?"

"Naruto, do you remember the incident that you had a while back with the Kunoichi named Shizuka from Nadeshiko Village?" Tsunade asked a perplexed Naruto.

Naruto suddenly froze up, and his memories slowly shifted to the silhouette of a young girl, who had fair skin and was of average height. Shizuka herself was a fairly beautiful woman, with eyes as green as Sakura-chan, and with her waist-length black hair tied up in hime-style cut tied up in a high ponytail with short bangs and chin-length strands framing up her face. Honestly, Naruto had to admit that she was an attractive woman. While she wasn't attacking him and seeking his hand in marriage though, he added on in his thoughts.

He had not told anyone in the village about his encounter with the kunoichi, or the knowledge that he had come to learn about Nadeshiko Village, the female only village where men were forbidden to enter.

Sakura, however, was not as green with general knowledge as much as Naruto. She remembered being taught something like that in the Academy, and she then wondered where Naruto had been during such a crucial lesson.

_Probably sleeping or wreaking havoc in the village alongside Shikamaru, Kiba and Chouji._

Naruto then asked Tsunade, "Y-you, but how did you know about that?"

"Oh, Yamato told me about it once we returned to the village and he gave me the report of all that had occurred since you left to head for The Land of Lightning. That included your sudden marriage proposal and fight with Shizuka from Nadeshiko village, with her master Tokiwa as audience."

"M-marriage proposal?" A shocked Sakura asked. Honestly, she had not expected something as big as that to reach her ears within the village. She felt her insides squirming with hotness, and turned her head with Naruto, a vein slowly popping up in her forehead. She had at least expected Naruto to tell him something of this magnitude, so she felt left out that she had not heard about this particular adventure from him. That, plus something else that she had not expected to feel at such a moment.

Jealousy.

"Wait, Sakura-chan, I can explain," Naruto raised his hands in defense, his face now turned to the pinkette who was standing behind him in the room.

"You'll tell her about it en route to the village, Naruto. You're already late and there's no need to delay any longer within the village. Your particular mission is to help resolve a certain issue that occurred there recently, and since they were unwilling to reveal the full details due to fear of compromise on the safety of the village, they informed us that we would receive the details of the mission once we had already gone there. Got it?"

Sakura nodded curtly, and decided to ask Naruto about his experience with the girl named Shizuka from Nadeshiko once they had departed. However, she was concerned about one thing, so she decided to ask Tsunade.

"Tsunade-sama, not to be rude or anything, but why assign the two of us particularly on this mission? I mean there are other skilled shinobi in the village, so wouldn't it be more efficient to send them instead?"

Tsunade then replied, "Well, I thought the same thing to at first, but when I weighed all the possible options it seemed more efficient to send the two of you. I mean, Naruto has already made contact with their strongest kunoichi, and it seemed that the two of them left off at a good note, so there'll be considerably less hostility once you enter the village. And then, there's you Sakura. You're his teammate and the one whose known him the longest, and the two of you mske a good combination in battle. Plus, there's the fact that you are a girl, and a kunoichi just like most of their inhabitants, so adding to the fact that you'll manage to enter the village without many issues. You see? Sending too many people might make the residents of the village in a state of unease, so I decided to send only a two-man team, trusting that you'll be able to handle the situation well with your current abilities."

Analyzing all that her master had told her, Sakura nodded her head firmly, then said, "Understood, Tsunade-sama. We'll leave immediately."

Tsunade then folded up the scroll that she had read their mission specifics from neatly, and handed it to Sakura, before saying, "Here is a map to the village of Nadeshiko. It's located near the Land of Water, so it will be a considerably shorter trip than the one which you had made to Sunagakure. I'm leaving this map in your care, Sakura, since us both know that a certain blonde idiot might have trouble reading this map."

Sakura chuckled a little, then placed the map into her pouch, before turning to Naruto, and seeing the expression on his face, ushered him on," Come on, Naruto. You don't want to be late for your reunion with your "bride."

Naruto was snapped out of his thoughts, where he was just wondering what had just happened to Nadeshiko that they even had to ask for help from a Hidden Village of all places. He did not hear the slightly bitter tone that had been in his Sakura's voice when she said the word "bride."

"Uum, sure, let's get going, Sakura-chan. "

And with that, Naruto and Sakura immediately exited Tsunade's office, their destination Nadeshiko Village.

**A/N: **To be continued. After several hours of typing, Chapter 3 is finally done and done! To be honest, I'm having my doubts about the middle section of this Chapter, as I feel like it personally didn't appeal to me that much. However, I hope that you guys will enjoy it as you did the previous two chapters, and as usual, don't forget to review. Peace out!


	4. A Heartfelt Trip

**Chapter 4**

**A Heartfelt Trip**

"She's taking too long!"

Naruto groaned in exasperation, while he had positioned himself on one of the walls that was just at the gate that led into the village. Once they had left the Hokage's office, Naruto had suggested that they make haste for the gate and depart immediately for their mission. He felt a sudden rush of excitement and eagerness overcomes his entire body, as he had not been on a mission like this since forever. Well, it was certainly a good change of pace from the lazed out life that he had been living everyday till now, and he was ready to start out as soon as possible.

However, his teammate, Sakura, seemed to have other things on her mind. She had told Naruto to head to the gate first, while she went and dealt with a meager issue before being fully ready to set off for the mission. Naruto, slightly surprised by this, asked her what she intended to do and if he would come along with her to assist her so that she wouldn't take too long, she turned down his offer of assistance. Naruto was about to protest, but Sakura, having expected this, as she knew how stubborn Naruto was sometimes when it came to her, immediately waved him goodbye and departed from his presence.

10 minutes had already passed, and Naruto felt impatience gnawing away at his insides. He certainly did not like being kept waiting in situations like this, and he started tapping his fingers on his elbow. Naruto closed his eyes and began wondering what was taking Sakura so long, and then, the image of a raven haired Uchiha appeared in his mind.

Naruto's eyes suddenly jolted wide open, and then he came to a painful conclusion. Sakura had probably gone to tell Sasuke goodbye, having decided not to tell Naruto since she knew that Naruto could not, for the life of him, tell Sasuke where he was going. Well, the two of them were best friends, that went without saying, but there were some things that were better kept to themselves rather than revealing them to each other. Besides, Naruto would probably want to brag about his mission to Sasuke once he had returned to the village, therefore telling him goodbye would definitely kill the surprise.

Naruto smiled sadly, as it finally hit him. Sakura had definitely gone to see Sasuke off, and with how the Uchiha had managed to redeem himself after Naruto beat some sense into him during their battle at the final valley; there would be a chance that he would probably hug the kunoichi goodbye. Team 7 was Sasuke's family after all; well his only living family, after the last members of his clan died off in the war, in Uchiha Obito and Uchiha Madara. It wouldn't be too far-fetched for him to hug Sakura goodbye after all that had been said and done and done, and for one maddening second, Naruto had an image of the two in each other's arms, saying things like, "Take care," and "See you later."

Well, to say the truth, he had expected this ever since the Uchiha had returned to the village. Sakura still held feelings for the man, evident in the way she confessed in front of Naruto and Kakashi before the final battle between Naruto and Sasuke, and how she shed tears for him, pleading for him to come back. Naruto had known, all along, that his own feelings for Sakura would always cause him to suffer because of her feelings for Sasuke, but yet he had still chosen to love her anyway. He had known that if he had chosen to walk along this path, he would suffer immeasurably, but somehow, he still held hope, and he knew that the pain was definitely worth it for the girl he loved. With this thought in mind, he allowed himself to smile a little over the sadness that had overcome his expression, and decided to wait for Sakura patiently.

"Naruto!"

He did not have to wait very long this time. Her voice broke the train of thoughts that was running through his mind, and he looked up to see her running towards him from the opposite side of the road. He smiled nonchalantly at her, and then waved at her to hurry up and join him so that they could leave.

As Sakura approached him and he was getting a clear and clearer view of her, he noticed that there was something on her back. It was a bag. A medium-sized bag, for that matter, and from the material that was used to make it, he realized that it was a camping bag. Odd, hadn't she been to see Sasuke off? So what was the deal with the bag? He got confused for a moment, but waited for her to reach him so that she could clear his confusion.

"That took you a shorter time than expected."

Sakura suddenly stopped in her forward motion.

"Wait, what?"

Naruto raised his back from the wall he was currently resting on so that he could get a better look at his teammate, who seemed as confused as he did over what he had just said.

"Weren't you seeing Sasuke off?"

Sakura was taken aback by what Naruto had just told her. Honestly, just how much did he think that her whole world revolved around the Uchiha? She balled her hand into a fist, and felt the sudden urge to knock the blonde shinobi over his head. While it was true that she (might) still have held some lingering affections for their teammate, it wasn't as much as she had in the past. In the past, while they were still genin, she may have actually done what Naruto had just suggested she had been doing, but she wasn't the same old girl before. But this time, things were different. Entirely different. Naruto had not realized that yet, and for some reason, Sakura felt a bit hurt by his sentence.

"Why would I be- Forget it. If you really must know what I was doing, then I was making sure to get some supplies since I knew that you would be too hyped up for the mission that you would forget the most important thing."

Naruto felt his mind become more and more jumbled up by what Sakura had just said, so he asked again, with a bewildered expression on his visage.

"What did I forget?"

Sakura sighed a little, and then placed her hand over her head. Her other hand, which was still balled up into a fist, suddenly released itself. Well, she had expected this to happen, at any rate, since her blonde haired teammate was an idiot. Well, sometimes he pulled through, but most times he was just that, a dunce that was not able to read the mood or atmosphere. She couldn't be angry with him after that. After a few seconds of silence where Naruto just stared at Sakura curiously, she lowered her hand from her face then said.

"Well, you seem to have been too dense to figure it out, so I'll tell you. We are going on a mission to Nadeshiko, and we don't know how long we'll take on the mission, right? So I thought it would be best if I carried personal effects, like tissue and toothpaste plus a few bottles of water in case we get parched along the way. And a few clothes too, in case the ones I'm in become too filthy and I need to change them. I also carried medical supplies in case one of us gets injured along the way and they need emergency medical treatment. That's it, that's what I was doing all the time while you were waiting for me here."

Naruto nodded his head in understanding, finally getting a grasp of the situation and why Sakura had decided to take her sweet time in getting there. For some reason, he felt immensely relieved that she had not decided to spend her last moments in the village seeing off Sasuke and telling him that she would be back soon, but of course he would not tell her that. It would be too selfish of him. Still, he felt a bit guilty about having such feelings of envy towards their raven haired teammate. He was not supposed to feel this way, but sometimes he could not help it, and at those times he loathed himself for not being more elated that Sakura was happy loving Sasuke.

He grinned at Sakura, and flashed her one of his trademark thumbs-up, as a sign that he had finally gotten his head around the matter, before something else popped up in his head. Actually, it would have been better if he would have not mentioned it at all, but well Naruto was really an idiot sometimes.

"Sakura-chan, do you really need all that stuff? I mean it's not like we'll be out of the village for long, I don't think you should carry all those personal effects."

Sakura felt a vein pop in her forehead, and this time she could not restrain herself from smacking Naruto over the head. Naruto winced in pain, and rubbed the spot over his head where Sakura had just landed her fist, before finally staring into her eyes again. She was furious, and Naruto realized that he may have landed into hot soup already, even before the mission itself had already started. Well, he was already used to this so many times before, but this time Sakura herself seemed extremely angry. Naruto realized that he may have crossed the line a bit too far this time.

"For Kami's sake, Naruto, I'm a girl! I need to take care of my personal hygiene more than you, you know.I swear sometimes you come off as the biggest baka in the world."

Naruto smiled meekly, as he awaited another punch to land from the pink-haired girl. Well, he had not expected the answer to be that simple. True enough, he had not exactly taken such a long time on missions before with his female teammate before, so he really did not pay attention to the amount of luggage that she carried on each and every mission. This time, however, was different. They were heading into an unfamiliar territory, so it was uncertain how long that they would take heading there and even heading back to Konoha. Sakura had certainly taken no chances in getting herself ready for a mission of such magnitude. Well, Naruto felt a bit mortified that he had not thought this far ahead, but well; Sakura was always smarter than him, so he couldn't really help it.

Sakura, on the other hand, felt a bit better after socking Naruto in the head. Well, she knew that the man was a bit dense in matters regarding females, but she felt a bit special, since he tended to act this way around her and not the other kunoichi in Konoha. True enough, there were plenty of other beautiful girls in Konoha, amongst them her best friend Ino, who was stunningly beautiful since she had fair skin and her blonde hair was definitely a plus one in any one's eyes. However, Naruto seemed to treat the rest of them indifferently, as he held no particular opinion of them. He viewed them all as part of the big family that he had of Konoha, and each of them was an important part of his life that he could not afford to lose. However, with Sakura, things were entirely different. He could act as goofy and as free as he wanted, and no matter how many times Sakura reprimanded him, he was not angry at her in any way. He was still the same idiot that he was when they were first placed in the same team, and that hadn't changed a little bit over the years. Even though the death of his master Jiraiya had caused him to start looking at things in a much more level-headed manner, he was still the same old Naruto when he was with his pink-haired teammate. Somehow, this matter made Sakura feel at ease. Out of all the things that had changed in her life as she grew up, Naruto was the one constant factor in her life that never changed. He was her blonde idiot.

"If it makes you feel any better, I promise I won't get myself injured during the mission. Besides, I heal really fast these days now that I've gotten Kurama's chakra completely under my control, so I definitely won't be a bother to you!"

Sakura sighed again. Leave it to Naruto to try and patch up a situation after creating a certain sense of awkwardness between two people. Well, at least he was trying to make her feel better after offending her in some sense, so she could at least take on his efforts. They weren't exactly good enough though.

"I guess you're right about that. But I don't think it would hurt to be careful. Besides, you may need more delicate care such as stomach upsets from eating something bad in the forest, and I don't think Kurama knows how to heal an aching stomach." Sakura remarked, but in some part of her she felt a bit sad. She knew that Naruto made a valid point, since after mastering the chakra of the Nine-Tails completely at Turtle Island, his healing speed had sky-rocketed. Normal medical ninjutsu seemed like such a fluke to him at the moment. She felt a bit sad that she wouldn't be able to take care of Naruto as much as she had in the past whenever he had gotten himself injured, no matter the level of the injury. Still, she wanted to be there to take care of him in any way possible, meaning she would not give up so easily.

Naruto pouted at her playfully at her statement, his hands lowered in a show of disappointment. Sakura knew he was joking however, so she let him continue, "Sakura-chan, you know I'm more careful than that! I won't just put anything I see in my mouth!"

"Oh no, I'm not buying that Naruto. When you were helping me, Ino and Chouji collect medicinal herbs for the war, you decided to check out which ones were the correct ones by tasting them! I mean who does that!"

Naruto's memories shifted to the time when they were sailing to Hidden Cloud, and remembered when they had made a stop at an island that was rich in medicinal herbs, and there he had run into Sakura, Chouji and Ino, who were on a mission to collect herbs assigned to them by Tsunade. Naruto had decided to help them out, since his team had to let Gai-sensei recover from his bout of seasickness, but when Ino had SPECIFICALLY told him what exactly to look for, he discarded her information and decided to use his own, unorthodox method to look for herbs. Which involved…yes, tasting each and every plant on the island and finding out which one had the same taste as the plant that Ino had shown him earlier. This later cost him the use of his chakra as they were attacked by a group of Rogue Ninja that had the same objective as them in acquiring medicinal herbs, but for sale.

"Well, that was-" Naruto started, but then Sakura placed a finger to her lips, which was an indication that any further protests were not allowed. She smiled, and then said, "I think that's that. I'll be carrying the medical kit. Besides, what happens if I get injured?

"That won't happen!"

"What makes you so sure?" A curious Sakura asked, although she had a feeling that she might have figured out the answer before it escaped his lips.

"Because I'll definitely protect you, Sakura-chan!" Naruto was beaming at her, his smile as bright as the sun that was currently overhead, while one of his hands was at the back of his head.

Sakura could not bear to look at his extremely vibrant face at the moment, so she shifted her gaze to a lamp post that was next to them, and silently muttered, "Baka."

"Well, shall we go then?"

Naruto removed his hand from the back of his head, and then raised his fist into the air, before shouting, "Yeah!" With that, the two teammates exited the village and began walking towards Nadeshiko village.

As they were still on the path leading out of the village, Naruto raised his head and let out a moan of discomfort. Sakura did not fail to notice this, as she was standing next to him, so she asked him.

"What is it this time? You forgot something?"

Naruto looked at Sakura, then pouted a little and said, "Well, yeah. I didn't want to raise this earlier when we were leaving the village since it could have set us back by some time, but when you said that you carried stuff, I realized that I didn't carry any personal effects for this mission, so it might set us back a little. Sorry about that, Sakura-chan."

Sakura looked at Naruto for a few minutes, taking in the disappointment that was registered on his expression at the moment, and then let out a chuckle. Truly, if she left him to his own devices she was not sure just how far Naruto would be able to make it. Naruto saw her chuckling, and then thought that she was laughing at his mistake, so he exclaimed at her in dismay.

"Saaaaakura-chaaaan! It's not funny! We may have to spend time in shops shopping for my stuff and then we'll be set back in completing the mission!"

Sakura's chuckles died down, and then she said to the blonde, "No, it's not that, Naruto. I mean you shouldn't really have any problems even if you didn't carry extra clothes, right? You're always in that orange jacket and pants so I don't see any need to change into anything more."

"Hey! I do have other clothes like this, you know! It's just that orange is my favorite color so all of them happening to be the same color as this one. I do change my clothes Sakura-chan!"

Sakura blinked in surprise, taking in the slight bit of information that Naruto had just revealed to her. In all her years of knowing him, she had come to learn a few things about him, but she had never actually known what his favorite color was. She had always thought that he had chosen to clad these orange jumpsuits because he had a terrible sense of fashion, not because it was his favorite color. Not that she minded the clothes though; they seemed to fit him so perfectly with that overly bright personality of his. Orange was the color of the sun as it set, and he was like the sun to her, plus most of the residents in Konoha.

_I see. So orange is your favorite color then._

She smiled a little at this, and then turned to Naruto, preparing to tell him something that she had not told him ever since meeting him at the gate. Well, it had to do with why she had also decided to take her time preparing for this mission. She had foreseen this predicament that Naruto would fall into, therefore she had decided to act accordingly. She wasn't his teammate all those years for nothing.

"Well, Naruto, the truth is, I didn't just go back to get my personal effects. As I was heading to my home I decided to pass by your place, and also get some of your clothes and stuff."

"YOU WHAT?"

Naruto was flabbergasted, and his mouth was opened wide in surprise. Sakura held up her hands in defense, because Naruto looked as if he was about to eat her up right now. Unbeknownst to her, the blonde who was beside her was beside himself with joy. Never before had he expected Sakura to actually watch out for him to this extent. She had gone to limitless extents for him before, each time more than the previous time, but this blew all of them out of the water. Naruto beamed at her, and she found herself smiling back at the ear to ear smile that Naruto had just shot at her.

Lowering her hands, she replied to Naruto's rather loud question, "Well, like I said, I passed by your house and picked a few of your items that I thought would come in handy during the mission. Well, actually I found the door was unlocked so I just let myself in. Then I went straight to your room, it was actually still in the same clean state you left it in this morning, and took a few of your personal effects, placed them in my bag and locked the door behind me."

Next thing Sakura knew, she was being enveloped by an extremely sturdy pair of arms, and a patch of blonde hair blocked her view. She shrieked a little because of the sudden gesture, and then she felt her feet leaving the ground. She felt herself spinning in mid-air, and then realized that Naruto had just held her in a tight hug and was currently twirling her around in bliss, while laughing heartily.

"Thank you so much Sakura-chan! You're a life-saver! I don't know what I could do without you!"

Naruto exclaimed in joy, while spinning the pink-haired girl around him. Sakura held onto his arms for life, because she did not want him to suddenly let go of her in a frenzy or slip from his grip and fall to the ground below them. Her nostrils got the waft of Naruto's scent, due to their close proximity, and she found the scent actually pleasing. Naruto's eyes were closed and his mouth was open wide in laughter, and all of a sudden Sakura became aware of how dangerously close their faces were. Well, Naruto had definitely grown taller than her in his training session with Jiraiya, meaning he had dwarfed the pink-haired kunoichi, so the fact that he had raised her like this meant that the two were on the same height. Sakura found herself staring at his face, taking in the blonde eyebrows, and the whiskers that adorned his cheeks. They were surprisingly….cute. Suddenly, she felt her cheeks growing scarlet, and frantically shot her gaze away from him. The sudden jerk of her face made Naruto become aware of what he had just done.

His eyes slowly opened to meet the face of his teammate, and he was met with the sight of her fair cheeks. There was a slight tinge of red on them, and Naruto wondered what had caused that. However, what really startled him was the fact that he realized that he had the girl in his arms, and could feel her body pressing up against his.

He gasped a little, and then released the pink-haired girl almost immediately. Sakura yelped a little, before her bottom collided harshly with the ground below her. Naruto frantically rose his hands and began waving embarrassedly, as he had just ashamed himself twice in front of the apple of his eye.

"Ow-"

"I'm sorry, Sakura-chan!"

Naruto made a step forward to help her get off the ground, but then his instincts stopped him, telling him that if he took a step closer to Sakura he would be in for another world of pain. She rubbed her bottom, then got up from the ground and dusted her behind which had just gotten dirtied by her sudden collision with the ground beneath her. Once she had steadied herself, she looked at Naruto, who noticed that the tinge of red that had been on her cheeks previously was not there anymore. Naruto then realized just what had transpired between the two of them. For the first time in his life, he had hugged the girl of his dreams, something that he thought would never happen to him.

Sure enough, the two had shared a hug before, but back then, it was Sakura who had hugged Naruto instead.

_He had just returned to the village after talking with Nagato of the Akatsuki, and convincing him till he revived all the villagers of Konoha. Sakura, alongside the other Konoha shinobi, had eagerly awaited his return, and once he had appeared, on the back of their master, Hatake Kakashi, she walked towards him silently, while feeling anger and relief well up inside her. She was angry that Naruto had taken such a risk upon him fighting the leader of the Akatsuki, and relieved that he had managed to come out of the whole matter unscathed. So she knocked him over across his head, habits that she had for a long time now around him but she found difficult to drop, and once he had fallen to her arms, she slowly raised him and enveloped him in a warm hug. At that moment, Naruto was visibly shocked, as the expression on his face looked like that of a man possessed, and he looked totally out of place while he was in Sakura's arms. However, his insides were screaming with joy, and he felt as if he was on cloud nine at that moment. He was not sure whether he was supposed to hug her back, so he let his arms fall freely to his sides, while enjoying the embrace of his Sakura-chan._

Now, here back to the present, he had just hugged Sakura. He had also gone as far as spinning her in the air, something he was sure that happened between couples, as his mom had told him about how Minato had hugged her in ecstasy and raised her in the air once she had broken to him the news about her pregnancy. Well, Naruto had just done the same thing to Sakura, while it was for an entirely different (and somewhat silly reason), and she had not protested yet. In fact, she had let him hold her for a few moments, and once he had let go, she had not made any attempt at showing her disconcert with the matter. _Did that mean something?_ Naruto thought to himself, while looking at his teammate.

Sakura, on the other hand, who had been pleasantly flustered by Naruto's actions, cleared her throat, preparing not to show him what his hug had done to her. She looked at Naruto, who seemed to be out of it at the moment, and then told him, in a higher voice than normal.

"Well, make sure that you keep your house safely locked next time. I mean you never know who could make their way in there and make away with some of your stuff."

Naruto, who was brought back to earth by Sakura's statement, shook his hand and then said, "Oh, that's no big deal, Sakura-chan. When I was a kid and the village still hated me, they used to break into my house and destroy some of my stuff. Even when Gramps Third gave me a lock to my room, they still managed to vandalize the lock while I wasn't around and still destroy my house. So I decided to leave the matter like that. I've not really had a lock on my door since then."

Sakura was surprised by this, not expecting to hear something like this from Naruto. She always assumed that he left his house unlocked due to his sheer laziness and carelessness; therefore she had never thought that he had a reason for doing that. This was the second thing that she had learnt about Naruto today, the first being his favorite color, and the second one of the reasons for one of his age-old habits.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she was not sure if she should be asking this, lest she opened up some old wounds, but she still had to know. She felt that if she did not ask, she would miss up the chance to learn about one of the most important parts of Naruto's childhood.

"Well, what made them finally stop?"

Naruto looked at Sakura, and noticed the concerned look that was on her face. This wasn't good. He had made her worry, something that he didn't like doing to her. He always wanted her to live her life happily without concern for his troubles, since seeing her happy made his days loads better. However, it would not do any good to not tell her about this, so he decided to proceed with the story.

"Well, I didn't have any valuables in my place, so there weren't any missing stuff or something like that. Most of my stuff was left in tatters though. There was a time that I found the whole fridge had been thrown onto the floor, and its contents emptied, so I had to clean up the whole kitchen. It took me the whole night just cleaning up, and the next morning I had a fever since I was using cold water the whole night. I think they got bored of it or something, since once I turned into a genin the attacks stopped all of a sudden. Or maybe they thought now I could be able to defend myself since I had finally become a ninja!"

At this, Naruto pointed to the hitai-ate that was on his head, and smiled widely at Sakura. She felt all the concern that was in her dissipates at this, and felt her facial features relax. Leave it to Naruto to make a grave situation like that look like a walk in the park. Ever since he was a kid, he never really let negative things get to him, always choosing to look at the bright side of anything that seemed to be dark or gloomy. Maybe that was one of the reasons that Sakura had come to like his company so much. Even at times when she felt discouraged and felt like giving up altogether, he was always the one who encouraged her to get back on her feet and gave her the will to live.

They had reached a section of the road where there was a forest of trees in front of them, and Sakura became aware of how far they had travelled. Well, Nadeshiko Village was just near the Land of Water, meaning they had to walk a shorter distance than they had when they were escorting Tazuna to his home in their very first mission as Genin. Sakura took out her map, and Naruto came closer to get a better look as to where they were currently. He did not understand anything of what was written on the map though, so he scratched his head in confusion. Sakura noticed this, and realized that she had to explain the whole matter to him.

"Naruto you know if you really are aiming to become Hokage you really should learn how to read maps better. You're going to be having to deal with diplomatic relations with other countries and that will require travelling to countries of the Five Great Nations."

During the time that she had spent training with Tsunade, Sakura remembered that Naruto's dream was to become the Hokage, so out of curiosity, she decided to pay close attention to the work that Tsunade was engaged in daily before she created time to train Sakura. She realized just how much work a Hokage had to deal with daily, from handling paperwork to approving of requests from the Feudal Lord, and suddenly felt pity for Naruto since she knew that he wasn't smart enough to handle all that work. However, this did not stop her from supporting his dream, but she made it a point to inform him of any key points he would need to know in his quest to become the Hokage of the village.

Naruto smiled at her meekly then said, " He he, I'll cross that bridge when I get there?"

"You're already on that bridge, idiot."

"How long do we have till we get to Shizuka's village?" Naruto suddenly interjected, changing the subject to what was important at the moment. Somehow, Sakura did not like the way he referred to it as "Shizuka's village", but she decided to carry on with the explanation, "Well, according to this map, Nadeshiko village," Sakura made sure to put special emphasis on the name for a reason which Naruto did not know, before continuing," lies just beyond this forest of trees. Actually, it may be in this forest of trees. The village itself is positioned upon the lightly forested top of three massive and steep hills standing in a line, with two bridges spanning the gorges between them. The hills are situated within a lush forested valley in a mountainous region. So at some point in this forest we should come across a valley and that's where the village lies."

Sakura finished her explanation, and looking upwards at Naruto, whose eyes were shut and he was nodding, took it as a sign that he had understood everything that she had just explained to him. Well, at least he was not a total idiot. Sakura rolled the map and returned it to her pouch that rested at her hip. The two of them then ascended into the lush of trees that was just ahead of them, their pace increasing from what they were using before. The sun was already in the western part of the sky, meaning evening was already setting in. If Sakura's calculations were correct, they would be able to make it just as the sun was setting and darkness was falling across the entire land.

As they were jumping from tree to tree, Naruto realized that he had missed the odd sensation that came with leaping through forested areas as they were doing missions as Team 7. He smiled a little, and savored each step he took from branch to branch as he propelled himself forward, and next to him, Sakura was keeping up with him perfectly. He looked at her, and saw that she had her eyes fixated in front of them, so he decided to say something to lighten the mood that was currently in the air above the two of them.

"Wow, it's been a long time since the two of us were on a mission like this together, right, Sakura-chan?"

That may have been one of the cheesiest ways to start up a conversation in order to create a sense of relaxedness.

Sakura looked at Naruto, who had his focus constantly shifting between her and his front, meaning she didn't have to worry about him bumping into any trees by accident.

"Well, yeah it has been, but you do realize that you aren't the only person I can go on missions with, right?"

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto started, but he knew that the girl next to him had just told him the truth, and he could not deny what she had just said. Still, there was a nostalgic familiarity that he felt going on missions with her, and to be honest he did not like the idea of her going out on missions with other people. Other people in this case meaning Uchiha Sasuke. Naruto realized that he was starting to act up on his feelings again, so he decided to push the matter to the back of his head, and refocus on what Sakura was telling him. At any rate, she wasn't his girlfriend (well, officially anyway, since he had told his dad that she was his girl in the war), meaning he didn't have a right to dictate whoever she went on missions with.

"Wait, does that mean you've been on missions with Sasuke?"

There it was again. Sakura noticed that Naruto had kept on bringing her relationship with Sasuke to light every time he heard that she was doing something by herself, and was ready to smack the living daylights out of him. Well, she realized that he still thought that she still held a torch for Sasuke after all that had been said and done with him and their old team, owing to how she fawned over him in the past, so Naruto could not help it. Still, she was not sure how she would reveal to Naruto that her feelings for Sasuke had waded down a lot since he returned to the village. Was he even supposed to know?

"Excuse me Naruto, but no. Come on you know better than anybody by now just how much I've gotten stronger. I think I can handle a mission on my own without you or Sasuke there to watch over me. Even Kakashi-sensei, "Sakura explained, matter-of-factly to her blonde teammate. Naruto's eyes widened in surprise, and somehow he could not help feeling a surge of pride well up in him from the pink haired girl's statement. Well, she had a point, Naruto had seen just how stronger she had gotten for himself in the war first-hand. She was no longer the same frail 12- year old genin that Naruto and Sasuke had to watch out for each moment they encountered a new enemy. She had bloomed so beautifully, and Naruto had been there to see it all, first-hand.

_You've gotten so much stronger, you know._

Naruto thought to himself, while smiling, but then something that Sakura had said earlier resurfaced and captured his attention.

"Wait, but I thought you said I'm not the only one you can go on missions with."

"Yes, I did."

"So you've been doing solo missions all this time."

"While you were lazing around doing Kami-knows-what, and as per Tsunade-sama's orders, yes, I was."

"But I thought you meant that you were teaming up with others and-"

"No, I said that so that you wouldn't get too cocky and think you're the only one who can team up with me."

Naruto laughed a little. "Well, I do make the best partner for you after all. Sai would spend the whole mission making fun of your looks, Kakashi-sensei would spend an entire mission with you reading his perverted book, and Sasuke would….be Sasuke." He concluded with a sweat drop, as he could not imagine Sasuke managing to hold a proper conversation while with anyone in the middle of a mission.

Sakura could not hold back a laugh at the last person that Naruto had mentioned and also found herself laughing heartily. Well, Naruto was right after all. It seemed like he was the best partner for her, after all.

Partner.

The word rung again inside her head, then she remembered something Tsunade had said while in the office.

"Marriage proposal."

This translated to "bride", which translated to "life-long partner."

Sakura then realized that she had forgotten to ask about the specifics regarding the kunoichi called "Shizuka" and mentally slapped her for it. Leave it to Naruto to catch her in his pace and make her forget to ask the most important detail that had been lingering in her mind ever since the two left Tsunade's office. It was the best chance to ask now, since once they set foot into the village, there probably wouldn't be any other chance to ask Naruto regarding Shizuka.

"Naruto?"

"Hm?"

"I've been wondering for a while now, who is Shizuka?"

Naruto gulped a little, and almost lost his footing on the branch that he had currently hopped on. Well, lucky enough he did not fall, but still, he did not expect Sakura to land such a bombshell on him at this point. He had actually forgotten to explain the entire situation to her as he had been told by Tsunade whilst they were heading to Nadeshiko, so he berated himself for it. It was not nice keeping Sakura-chan in the dark regarding certain issues. However, this certain issue was one that was kind of really embarrassing to remember, since he had divulged to the said kunoichi something really important. Important in the sense that it involved his feelings for Sakura, something which he had made known to a few people, except the pink-head herself.

Naruto's memories swam back to a time when he had poised himself on the ground, talking to Shizuka in front of him, after he had defeated her but had refused to take her hand in marriage.

"_I have a girl I love named Sakura-chan. Well actually, it's one-sided on my part. Sakura-chan is totally in love with a guy named Sasuke. She tries her hardest, doing her best to win him over. When she's at it, her smile is the cutest thing. There's no explaining it. Before I knew it, I was in love with her. I would never force Sakura-chan to love me. I'd be no different from that guy right now if I did. So I made up my mind. In the same way that Sakura-chan tries to win Sasuke over, I'll try my best to win Sakura-chan over_!

The words replayed themselves in Naruto's mind, and it was his turn to get flustered over what he had said back then. Well, the truth was, he had told Shizuka about his feelings for Sakura in an attempt to make her see why her decision had been wrong, but never again had he expected to be sent back to the place where the one person who knew full well the depth of the love he felt for Sakura was. It was kind of embarrassing, the more he thought about it.

Sakura noticed the blush that had appeared on Naruto's cheeks, and immediately, she thought that it had been caused by her utterance of the name "Shizuka." Somewhere in her heart, she felt a bit sad. Sad that she had no idea who this person was, yet she had spent nearly all her free time in Konoha with Naruto. She felt as if Naruto had not told her about something really important that he had gone through, but then again, she wasn't exactly Naruto's significant other or anything. Still, she had a right to know, right? Pushing back these thoughts that held weights of sadness, she looked at Naruto, who looked as if he was finally ready to answer her.

"Well, uum, Sakura-chan, she's a girl who I was supposed to marry, since Ero-sennin had defeated her master. Well, not actually defeat, the match between the two of them had ended as a draw, so they decided to pass it on to their disciples. And the two disciples were me and Shizuka. The two of us did have our fight, and I defeated her. However, the marriage did not go through, since I managed to make her see reason."

Sakura became confused.

"Wait, what? How come you didn't end up marrying her? I mean you did defeat her, after all. Weren't you supposed to marry her if you were able to defeat her? That would make you the head of the Nadeshiko Village, right?"

Somehow, Sakura's voice did not sound like it normally did. It sounded as if it was heavy, and bore a weight that Naruto did not fail to notice. However, he decided to press on, since he had already started anyway. He was going to reveal the entire truth to Sakura.

"Well, you're right about me being the head of the Village if I did marry her, but I don't have an interest in becoming the head of a Village I hardly know anything about. The only Village I've ever been interested in ruling over is Konoha, and I want to protect each and everyone in there. So I wasn't really drawn in by the idea. Besides, I couldn't marry her even if I wanted to. There's someone else."

Sakura felt her eyebrows rise a little at this.

"Someone else who what?"

"Someone else who I love. And I still haven't won them over completely. So I couldn't marry Shizuka while knowing that my heart lay with someone else. It would be too cruel to her and me too."

Sakura felt her heartbeat quicken a little at this. She felt…_relieved? _Well, she was now up to date with what exactly Shizuka and Nadeshiko had to do with her teammate, but a part of her felt relieved that he had admitted to not holding any romantic interest in Shizuka. _Why? _She could not understand it herself, but maybe, just maybe, some part of her hoped that she was the girl that Naruto still loved. Even after all this time. She was aware of what he felt for her, but maybe he felt differently right now. She could not be sure, and that, more than anything, compelled her to ask him the next question. She was not sure whether she was being selfish asking him, but she wanted to know. She felt that she could not be at peace if she did not ask him this right now.

"Who is it?"

Naruto blinked at her in confusion.

"Who's what?"

"Who is the girl you are trying to win over?"

It sounded more like a plea to Naruto more than anything, and he was not sure whether he was doing the right thing by deciding to tell Sakura the truth. Just as his mouth opened, however, a voice suddenly broke the tranquility that the two teammates were currently enjoying.

"Don't move!"

**A/N: **Allow me to apologize for not updating this sooner. Having my life riddled with exams, assignments and group work certainly tends to do a number on my progress with my stories. Still, I managed to get some time in between my busy schedule to update this fanfic, since I'm not really sure when the next update will be. End of semester exams are starting in two weeks, so I may/may not be short of time once they start. Just a heads-up, though. I felt a bit under confident while writing the first part of this story, but I hope you guys will manage to enjoy it immensely. Do make sure to read and leave a review. Good night! And thanks for all the follows, reviews and favorites so far! NARUSAKU 4EVA!


	5. Nadeshiko Village

**Chapter 5**

**Nadeshiko Village**

Naruto's right leg, which had just landed on a branch of the tree that signified the end of the forest they had been in and meant that the entrance to the village of Nadeshiko would come into full view soon, slipped as soon as he heard those words telling him not to move. He tumbled backwards, and immediately realized that he was about to fall onto the ground below where the voices had come from, when he felt his body being grasped by a slender but firm pair of arms. He let his feet rest upon the branch that was behind him, as his teammate helped him steady himself and regain his balance.

"Thanks, Sakura-chan," Naruto said, as he looked behind his shoulder to meet the familiar blob of pink hair who had him currently in her arms. His back was against her torso, and the girl held him firmly to make sure that both of them would not fall off the tree branch they were currently on due to their amassed weight.

"You're welcome, Naruto. Be careful where you're going to step on next time, okay?" Sakura replied behind him, and Naruto could feel her warm breath on the nape of his neck. It sent a feeling of excitement throughout his entire body, but he realized that this was not the time to be elated about something like this. Behind him, however, Sakura had realized just how close they were in proximity at the moment, and if it weren't for the interference that had appeared as she was having a heart-to-heart with her teammate in the forest, she wouldn't have minded staying with him like this for a tad longer. She knew as well as he did that this wasn't the time for this either, so she released him from her grip and Naruto felt a small part of him die a little inside. Hearing a sound of a creak next to him, he realized that Sakura had crouched on the branch of the tree so that she could get a better view of the ground before them, where the sound had come from. Naruto followed suit, and that was when he saw them.

There were three kunoichi that were stationed at the gate that lay ahead of them, one at the far east of the gate, the other one at the centre of the gate and the final one at the far west of the gate. Each of them was clad in the same uniform, which was form-fitting and was grey-colored, plus having a right shoulder guard, grey gloves, and an opening in the shirt that revealed their cleavage a little. Thus must have been the standard uniform for all the kunoichi in the village, Sakura thought, owing to the stark similarities among all of them. The kunoichi themselves had each been armed with a spear each, and at the waist lines they each had a set of kunai that went all the way round till their behinds. This was impressive, Sakura thought, the village itself was difficult to locate, and so having such a level of security at their front gate was definitely not something to scoff at. The few lucky people who had the chance of stumbling upon this village were probably all killed by these guards. With a slight feeling of shame, Sakura remembered how the gates of Konoha were watched over by Izumo and Kotetsu, and those two spent most of their time asleep rather than paying attention to whoever entered the village, so she made a mental note to remind Tsunade to increase the levels of security and awareness at the front gates. They were a village in one of the Five Great Nations, after all, so they had to display at least that level of seriousness to the other hidden villages in the remaining Hidden Villages.

Still, it seemed as alert as these guards were; they had not been able to pinpoint Sakura's and Naruto's positions within the trees that lay ahead of them. The each had their spears brandished in front of them, and were looking around while proceeding with caution towards the trees. They had probably heard the sound of a branch shaking or falling leaves as Naruto and Sakura were proceeding through the trees earlier in a haste. Naruto had barely made it to the edge of the forest when he tripped and nearly fell to the ground, where he would have been in plain view of the three guards, but thanks to Sakura's timely save she had managed to stop him from causing a ruckus and creating a complicated situation with the three guards. If Naruot had just popped out of the blue in front of the gate, there was a chance that he would be lunged at immediately without a chance to explain himself, so Sakura surmised that they had to do this process as carefully as possible. Besides, she was the one that had been given the scroll containing the mission, so she was technically the one in charge of this mission to make sure that everything went over as smoothly as possible.

"Who goes there?! Show your face, impostor!" The girl in the middle finally spoke up, after looking around and finding no traces of anyone in the trees that were just ahead of her. The girl herself was fairly young, having recently become a kunoichi of the Hidden Village. Her hair was auburn, having been woven into a set of curls and falling loosely at her shoulders. Her eyes were a shade of sapphire blue, which surprisingly, Sakura noted, complimented her hair color quite perfectly. She was quite attractive, and Sakura had a feeling that the kunoichi in the village put emphasis on beauty as well as honing their ninja skills. How they did it, she did not know, but it was still quite an impressive feat.

"Let's go, Sakura-chan. Hiding like this won't give a good impression on the villager if they find out," Naruto spoke up beside her, after what seemed like an eternity of silence between the two teammates. Sakura looked at her teammate sternly, who seemed to have his gaze somewhere beyond the gates of the village, above the wall of the mountain that surrounded it. He seemed to have been trying to satiate his growing curiosity of the area, having never been here before in all his years as a shinobi, and the pink-haired girl felt a bit relieved that he had not been ogling at the girl before them. As she drew closer and closer to the area that Naruto and Sakura were lounged in, Sakura became increasingly aware that she was drop-dead gorgeous, and felt a pang of jealousy at the girl's obviously better looks. She had somewhat feared that Naruto would have been taken in by the girl's alluring beauty, expecting her teammate to have been whisked away by the girl in a blink of an eye once they approached her, but since Naruto had his mind on other things at the moment, she let her growing fears abate as she replied to him.

"Mmm, let's go," Sakura replied, and the two descended the tree to head to the ground just in front of the woman. As they were in mid-air, however, and the girl slowly looked up to face them with an alarmed expression on her face, Sakura wondered what had caused her to be so worried about Naruto being dazzled by the guard's superior looks. She told herself that it was because they were in an unknown village, and they had to be on their toes in case anything happened, however, a smaller voice inside her spoke to her and told her that this wasn't the case at all.

She had no time to ponder over what she had been so worried about, however, as her and her teammate landed on the portion of earth just after the trees. There was a shriek, and the next thing Sakura knew, she had been surrounded by three spears that pointed at her in all directions.

The auburn-haired girl was in the middle, while her two teammates had covered both the right and left sections next to where Naruto and Sakura had landed shortly before. They probably responded to the earlier shriek by their comrade and rushed to her aide, however, Sakura was more impressed by the speed at which they had surrounded them. They had been there in the blink of an eye, before Sakura and Naruto had even been able to react and even manage to form a coherent response to the three kunoichi. Now that the auburn-head's comrades had managed to come closer, Sakura was able to get a good look at their facial features, and she was further taken aback by how gorgeous they looked, in comparison to their counterpart.

Standing to their right with her spear poised in a steady manner ahead of her and almost touching Sakura's left arm, the kunoichi there had a mass of bright green hair on her head. Her hair was wavy, barely touching her shoulders but covering every inch of her scalp perfectly, and she had a set of lime green eyes on her visage. Her gaze towards the pink-headed girl almost burnt Sakura because of how intensely she was looking at her; however, the rest of her body was completely relaxed. She seemed to be a physical embodiment of peace and tranquility, being someone that children would love to play within the lush green fields during summer. For a second, Sakura wondered just how on earth this woman was positioned to such an important task as protecting the village from any external attacks, but well, having seen her display of skill earlier, she decided to keep her mouth shut and the words got caught up in her throat.

Her comrade, on the left side where Naruto was currently standing, seemed quite the opposite compared to her comrades. Her hair was red, and her eyes were a striking set of ruby red, almost as intense as her hair color. Her spear was directly touching Naruto's chest, and she seemed as if she wanted to thrust in into him with the slightest move that he decided to make. Naruto himself had his hands in the air to show that he had no intention of harming the lady, and had come in peace, but she didn't seem keen enough to listen to whatever tale he would cook up for her. She stared at him just as intensely as the green-haired girl who covered Sakura was looking at the girl; however, she seemed to carry an aura of passion and intensity with her, owing to the tense atmosphere that the air surrounding her had taken. Naruto himself had a drop of sweat falling from his brow, and seemed to be scared for his life, having been rendered speechless by the girl's intimidating nature towards her. Sakura found it a bit amusing, because she had seen Naruto take on enemies as powerful as Uchiha Madara and Kaguya without batting an eye or retreating in fear, yet he had been scared out of his wits by a woman that would have killed him if looks could do that. It was kind of amusing, and Sakura had to do her best to stifle the chuckle that threatened to break out of her palate.

However, Sakura soon found her speechless with what happened next. The red-headed girl, who was looking at Naruto as if she was staring into the very depths of his soul, loosened the intensity of her stare, and with that, her spear slowly left Naruto's chest. Her look held a certain sense of recognition, and her comrades immediately looked towards her as if she had gone mad. After placing her spear standing upright next to her, she spoke up, breaking the tense atmosphere that had been around her completely.

"Uzumaki Naruto?" The girl said, a hint of uncertainty evident in her voice. Ahead of her, the blonde man raised an eyebrow in surprise, and, his arms still hoisted in the air, meekly nodded his head in response. For a moment, Naruto thought that she was confirming his identity so that she could be sure of the name of the man who she had been itching to kill a few moments earlier and his hairs stood on edge all over his body. This did not seem to be the case though, as immediately, she turned to her two comrades and nodded at them.

The auburn haired girl stared at her in disbelief," No way! Are you sure it's him, Akako?" Sakura noticed that her eyes were beaming as she said this, and her voice was brimming with glee as she lowered her spear away from Naruto and Sakura' midsections.

Beside her, the green haired girl that was calmly keeping watch on Sakura looked towards Akako and Naruto with a hint of displeasure in her eyes, but then she followed suit with her two comrades and lowered her sword too. "Yes, Sanyu-san. I'm afraid Akako is correct. Those whiskers, that blonde matt of hair on his head and those blue eyes of his, plus the hitai-ate on his forehead. He's from Konoha. There's no mistake, that man is Uzumaki Naruto-sama."

"_-sama?"_ Sakura felt a vein in her forehead twitch from the way the girl referred to Naruto as if he was her master or something like that. Still, she felt relieved that they were no longer the targets of the three girl's malice like earlier, but still, she wondered how all this was currently happening.

Sanyu turned to the green haired girl with excitement written in her eyes, and Sakura could not understand for the love of Kami why she looked so ecstatic at the moment. Was she really that happy at seeing Naruto?

"Wait, seriously? For real, Honoka-chan? It's really him! This is amazing!" Sanyu exclaimed in bliss, then after breaking her gaze with Honoka, she stared back at Akako, who was staring at Naruto as if wondering what to do with him. Immediately, she dropped her spear then rushed to the blonde haired man, who was rubbing the back of his head sheepishly clearly looking for something to say. They knew who he was, through some unknown means, so he found himself not knowing what to say to their change in mannerisms.

She halted just next to where Akako was standing, catching both the red-headed girl and Naruto in surprise, before she bowed hastily before the man. Sakura felt her eyebrows widening in surprise, wondering just what the younger girl was up to with that gesture out of nowhere. Sanyu then looked up at Naruto and said," I'm so happy to have finally been able to meet you! Everyone in the village is talking about you and how you are such a great man, so I wondered just what they meant. Now, being able to meet you like this, you look so-"

"That's enough, Sanyu," Akako spoke sternly beside the auburn haired woman. She was looking at the younger girl in a completely serious manner, and Sanyu felt a bit ashamed at the way she had conducted herself in the presence of the older and more experienced woman. Akako was the strongest amongst the three guardians, and Sanyu, having been the most recent one to join them, was by far the weakest. Honoka herself was weaker than Akako, although that could be as a result of the green haired woman failing to put as much time and effort in her training as Akako.

"I'm sorry, Akako-san," Sanyu apologized sincerely to the older woman, and Sakura found herself surprised by that show of respect just then. She had thought Sanyu was the type of girls that did not hold positions of authority in high regard as they were supposed to be, instead choosing to focus on things that they sound more appealing to their eyes, such as Uzumaki Naruto who was in the midst of their presence at that moment. From Sanyu's earlier outburst of pleasure, Sakura came to understand why the girl seemed so fascinated with the blonde man, him being the hottest topic within their village. Well, it wasn't something she had found weird. Ever since the Fourth Shinobi War, with Naruto and Sasuke's fame increasing as the heroes who managed to win the war and defeat the threats that plagued the Ninja world, namely Obito, Madara and eventually Kaguya, word of their bravery and amazing feats spread throughout the entire Ninja world. Apparently, it seemed an underground village such as this one was not exempt from those rumors.

Akako's expression softened on the younger kunoichi, and she then spoke to her again, "As long as you understand, Sanyu. Now I need you to go and inform the village leader, Shizuka-sama that the guests she had been expecting have arrived, as quickly as possible, then return with her response. Don't keep our guests waiting."

The pink haired girl in the group caught those instructions that had been issued to the younger girl, and felt a sense of unease inside her. So whoever this Shizuka was, she had told her guards to inform them in case Naruto and Sakura came to the village gates, and this wasn't exactly your run-of-the-mill procedure when a visitor came to a Ninja Village. By the looks of it, Shizuka had seemed to be eagerly waiting for Naruto to arrive in the village, and wanted news of his arrival immediately reported to her. Sakura honestly found the behavior odd, but decided not to dwell on it too much.

The younger girl then placed two fingers to the side of her head in a show of respect, before nearly shouting," Yes, m'aam!" And with that, she was gone in a flicker. Naruto found himself amazed at the way she disappeared in an instant like that, and could not keep himself from gawking at the site where she had previously been standing. Akako noticed this, a bit amused, before she huffed a little and said to the blonde man, all the malice that had been directed towards him earlier gone," Impressed, Uzumaki Naruto? Such is the ninjutsu that is taught here in our village. It is called the **Dance Step, **a technique almost similar to the **Body Flicker Technique** that runs within the Five Great Nations, but this time, the caster of the technique casts one step before disappearing by moving at instantaneous speed towards their destination. Just then, if you paid attention to Sanyu's foot, you would have noticed she took one step backwards with her left foot before disappearing. She's a novice in the technique, having recently becoming a kunoichi and being posted as a guard here, so you would still see her foot moving. For more experienced and skilled users like me," she pointed at her feet, to which Naruto followed the direction of her fingers till his eyes came to rest on her feet, and before he could adjust his eyes to take in her feet more clearly, she was gone.

-we can use the technique faster than the human eye can respond to, and you will barely even notice that our feet moved," she spoke up, and Naruto felt a gust of wind coming from behind him, before he found a slender hand encircled around his neck and his eyes widened in surprise. She had clearly been there for a few seconds and he had not even sensed her, yet she had been so close to him. He could feel her breath on the nape of his neck and goose bumps began breaking out in several sections of his body. This was truly a fearsome technique, in the hands of an equally fearsome woman.

Sakura found herself staring in amazement at the procedure in which the technique had worked, having never seen quite a technique before. Even the Konoha Library that she frequented in her free time within the village had no books speaking about such a technique, so she realized that it was probably a technique that had been passed down in the village and not allowed to leave the walls of the village. However, when she saw Akako appearing behind Naruto with her arm enclosed around him, she felt the second vein in her forehead pop that day, caused by one of these three stranger girls that had encountered them. These girls were acting _way_ too familiarly with Naruto, and Sakura found herself disliking it for some odd reason.

'_Too close'_

Sakura thought as she watched the scene before her with Akako and Naruto unfolding, so she decided to burst the kunoichi's bubble. She'd need 100 more years of time with Naruto to be able to hold him in such close proximity, so Sakura cleared her throat loud enough for the red-haired woman to hear. Akako, catching upon the girl's gesture, released her arm from around Naruto's neck then positioned herself in front of the blonde man again. Naruto adjusted the top of his jacket again, the slight sensation of fear he had felt earlier all but gone.

"That's an um- interesting technique, Akako-san," the blonde man said, for lack of a better word in the situation. To be honest, he was still scared of the red-haired woman; even if most of the fear he had towards her had disappeared after she had released her spear from his chest. He had addressed her as "Akako-san" with as much respect as he could muster, and Uzumaki Naruto was not one to address people with respect, so this was definitely saying something.

"Thank you, Naruto-san," Akako replied, her tone sounding pleased at his appreciation of her technique.

"Jealous much?" A voice spoke up next to Sakura's ear, and she nearly leapt out of skin due to the sudden surprise. Looking behind her ear, she realized that it had been Honoka who had spoken to her, then she realized that the green-haired woman had barely said a word ever since she answered Sanyu's question earlier. She was definitely the quietest girl among the three, but seemed to be an observant person, owing to the way she had realized the displeasure in Sakura's expression earlier. Of course, Sakura wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing that she may have been right about the kunoichi being jealous of Akako.

"Jealous?! What are you talking about? Why would I be jealous?!" Sakura immediately protested to her fellow kunoichi. She had kept her voice as low as possible since she did not want Akako to hear her, and sub sequentially Naruto, if he did she would probably go and hide in a hole there and then. Keeping her voice as low as possible would also make Honoka realize that Sakura wasn't as flustered as she had sounded, while deep inside her, she felt her heart beating a tad faster than normal.

Honoka, however, wasn't as easily fooled as that, Sakura realized, owing to the disinterested gaze she was having at the moment. Honoka was a woman who did not like needlessly drawing out conversations; however, she always loved it whenever people were honest with themselves. And Sakura was definitely not that at the moment.

"Aha, you're not fooling me with that tone, pinkie. You know it's okay to be jealous when another girl goes near your boyfriend, that means you two have a healthy relationship," Honoka stated dully, as she watched Sakura's face grow a deeper shade of red. The girl had been more flustered than with Honoka's earlier remark, and Honoka realized that she had hit the nail on the head with that one.

"Boyfriend?! What- But we're not even dating!" Sakura protested, a bit louder this time, and then she held her hand to her mouth. She had been a bit too loud with this sentence, and meekly, she looked behind her to look if Naruto and Akako were looking at her for her completely bizarre statement. To her relief (and slight dismay), she noticed that the two of them were engaged in conversation, although it looked as if Akako was the one who was dominating the conversation, owing to Naruto's nervous smile as he listened to her. He still hadn't gotten quite used to her presence yet, Sakura thought, but he was trying as much as possible to be courteous and polite to her as he listened to her talking about what seemed to be the techniques that were passed down through her village, owing to the way she occasionally pointed at her spear as she engaged in conversation with the blonde. Yep, Naruto was that kind of an idiot, Sakura thought.

Returning her gaze to the woman that was standing next to her, she saw that the woman had a slightly pleased expression on her visage. It irked Sakura a little, but still a small part of her couldn't help but believe what the woman had said earlier was true. Or rather, she wished it to be true.

"Oh, not dating then? It's kind of hard for anyone not to see that there is definitely something between you two. And don't give me that whole 'we're just friends-crap', a lot of people who say that are just plainly lying to themselves because they don't want to accept the truth for fear of being hurt, I think it's better being honest with yourself from the beginning, that way you're able to avoid the emotional rollercoaster that comes with running away from your feelings," Honoka explained matter-of-factly to Sakura, who found herself impressed with the woman's explanations. Little did she know that she and the green-haired beauty had more in common than she originally thought?

Honoka was one of the more emotionally mature women in Nadeshiko village, having taken to spending most of her time in the village in the library where she busied herself with a lot of books. There was a large volume of books to choose from, ranging from ninjutsu to more down-to-earth topics such as flowers and romance. The village of Nadeshiko prided itself in the fact that it could be able to bring up kunoichi that were as strong as they were beautiful, not choosing to sacrifice one over the other. So of course, more feminine topics such as romance had to be addressed within the village. This was an added advantage since it meant that the girls wouldn't be taken advantage of by men who claimed to 'love' them only in name, but when push came to shove they wouldn't be there for them. Honoka was one of the few women in the village who had excelled in both fields.

Sakura opened her mouth to retort to the woman's explanation, but found herself rendered speechless by the utter brilliance of her words. They made perfect sense now that Sakura heard them, and she felt the words reverberating in her mind over and over again, as the truth sunk in her. Honoka was right about everything, so Sakura found it increasingly difficult to deny what the mature woman was implying about her relationship with Naruto.

"So tell me, Sakura, what is he to you?" Honoka asked, her voice sounding dangerously calm as she uttered each word. Sakura wished that she could be able to find an answer to that question, but truth be told, she had been wondering the same thing herself for a long time now. Ever since Sasuke had returned to the village and she found she not as eager to spend time with him as she had in the past when she was younger. In fact, most times as she was working in the hospital taking care of the casualties from the war that they had all survived, she found herself growing increasingly curious about her blonde teammate and wondering what he was doing in those moments. Sasuke himself had joined the ANBU together with their master, Hatake Kakashi, so he was probably on duty 24/7. But with Naruto, things were different. He had finally brought back Sasuke, which had been his goal for a long time now, and Tsunade was still the Hokage, meaning it would still be a long time before he would take on that seat. Even if there were some voices in the village that agreed that the Fifth should probably retire soon, Naruto himself wanted Tsunade to live out the rest of her years as village leader before she retired willingly and possibly passed on the mantle to him. Sakura wondered what he was doing in the confines of his room, and sometimes when she was free in her office, she felt the desire to go see him and spend time with him. She missed him, even if he was always there for her at her beck and call. She did not know when she had started feeling this way, but in her gut it bothered her as she was questioning just what her status was with her long time friend.

"Well, the thing is-"Sakura started, unsure of herself, of what answer would escape her lips. In the past, she would have probably butted heads with Honoka for what she would deem as interfering in her own personal business, but Sakura felt as if she genuinely needed this so that she could resolve this particular nagging issue regarding her life. She had felt like she had wanted someone to push her towards making this decision, answering this question, since Naruto himself was too kind and too selfless of a person to ask about what he was to her. As long as she was happy, that was all that mattered to him, and Sakura felt her heart grow warmer with affection towards her blonde teammate. And more so, she felt grateful towards the green-haired girl, for pushing her towards the right direction without confronting her directly or meddling in her business.

Honoka looked at Sakura pensively, awaiting the answer that would escape the girls' mouth, even if she had a feeling what she would say, when there was a sudden gust of wind and a third person appeared in the midst of the two pairs of people there. Said girl was hunched over with her hands on her waist, then when she got up from her crouched position on the ground, throwing her auburn hair backwards with the wind; Sanyu's face came into view. She was breathing a bit heavily, clearly exhausted from using the Dance Step twice to go back and forth from the village head's office, but slowly placed her hand on her chest as she regained her breath.

"Welcome back. Were you successful?" Akako asked the girl, once she had managed to steady her breathing and relieve some of her exhaustion.

"Yes, Akako-san. Shizuka-sama says that Naruto-kun and Sakura-san are to go to her office immediately for immediate debriefing of their mission," Sanyu explained, with her hand raised towards her forehead as she had earlier before she had exited to go deliver the news to Shizuka. Really, the girl was too respectful, Sakura thought, as she watched her talking to Akako, however, she felt grateful to the girl for arriving when she did. A few seconds later, and Sakura thought she might have said something that would change her life forever.

Her blonde teammate also felt a similar sense of relief to the arrival of the auburn haired girl. His companion and new acquaintance had delved into a full-blown explanation regarding the village techniques and weapon techniques that were passed down in the village, and while Naruto himself found the techniques themselves amazing, he did not understand a single word of how the techniques worked. Naruto was a person who preferred actions rather than overly long explanations regarding the mechanics of how particular things worked. If Akako was actually demonstrating the techniques to him as she had with the **Dance Step, **Naruto would have probably taken a huge liking to the woman and wished to be taken as her number 1 student.

The two Team 7 teammates walked simultaneously towards the village gate, awaiting Sanyu's guidance and escort on how to arrive at the office where they would meet with the issuer of the mission that they were currently on, when Sanyu immediately stepped before the two of them , waving her hands frantically. The blonde and pink-headed girl stopped, perplexed at the younger girl's sudden action and Naruto's previously relieved expression turned into one of confusion. Beside him, Sakura folded her arms on her chest in exasperation, wondering what it was that had stood in their way this time. They had been delayed too long already; any more time wasted would probably not be taken kindly by Tsunade.

"What is it, Sanyu-san?" Naruto asked politely, his tone of voice lighter than what he had earlier as he was talking to Akako. He knew that this girl was easier going than the red-headed girl behind him, so he felt no unease at all in talking to her.

Sanyu smiled softly at him, and then lowered her hands, before saying," You two aren't going to walk to the office. Shizuka-sama says that will draw too much attention from the villagers, plus it will ruin an activity that they are currently preparing for, so I will teleport the two of you into the village head's office directly. There she'll be able to talk to you in private and confidentiality."

_Thank you._

These words ran through Sakura's mind after listening to what Sanyu had to say. It definitely did beat having to walk through unknown streets while looking for a place they had no idea of, and even if they had an escort, Sakura was not sure she would be extremely happy with the idea of all the eyes on the village focused on her and her teammate. She had a feeling that this would be the case even before they set one foot into the village, owing to Naruto's popularity within the walls of the village, so having found an alternative at this point proved to be a lifesaver for her. Besides, she added grumpily in her thoughts, she was not sure she would be comfortable knowing that other girls and women were leering at her teammate, plus knowing him and his knack for being unable to read the situation, he would probably be eager to return all their attention with smiles and waves. This would cause screams of delight in the village and exclamations of joy, and Sakura was not ready for such an event even before they had made it to Shizuka's office.

Naruto turned to Akako, who looked at him curiously as he stared at her a bit uneasily, before he opened his mouth and said," Well then, I'll see you later Akako-san. Take care." The red-headed girl widened her eyes in surprise at Naruto's outright honesty and polite nature, but she waved at him with her spear in her hand, before saying, "You too, Naruto-san. Good luck in your mission." With that, the ruby-eyed woman turned her back to the group, and walked till her position on the left part of the gate, her spear in hand, prepared to resume her duties.

Beside Naruto, Sakura gulped a little as she realized that she did not want to go through with what Naruto had done. Of course, she could have easily ignored Honoka and have Sanyu teleport them there and then, but well it would definitely leave a bad taste in her mouth, after witnessing Naruto's outright display of courtesy to the woman that he had been engaged in conversation with earlier. Reluctantly, she turned her head to meet the green-haired girl, who looked at her with the same expression she had even as they had their conversation earlier. Honoka had caused Sakura quite some emotional turmoil as she caused the girl to think about things that she had not thought about in a while, things that would change everything in her life if she decided to confront them. The pink-haired girl had not expected to encounter something like this on her first mission in a while with Naruto, so she felt a bit resentful towards Honoka. Still, that did not stop her from managing to smile at the woman, with all the honesty she could muster, and said," Well, then, this is it, Honoka. I'll be going now."

The green-haired woman smiled at her in return, a bit surprised that the girl did not use honorifics with her name even after referring to her with it for the first time since they made their encounter. Still, she could not be bothered less, she didn't particularly care whether people addressed her with respect or not, viewing such a matter as mundane, so she replied to Sakura,"Sure thing pinkie. But I have the feeling we'll be seeing a lot of each other really soon."

Sakura raised an eyebrow in surprise at the woman's last statement, but decided to ignore it as she stepped forward to latch onto Sanyu, preparing to be teleported to their destination. She latched onto the woman's shoulder, her teammate latching onto the opposite one, and in a flash they were gone.

The feeling was almost similar as to when Naruto had combined with Minato on the battlefield and used the **Flying Thunder God **to teleport everyone out of Obito's barrier and away from the Tailed Beast Balls that he had been preparing to launch at the Allied Shinobi Forces to decimate them completely. It was like you were being carried by someone through the air while all the oxygen was sucked out of your lungs. Still, the feeling was only momentary, as minutes later; Sakura felt her feet hitting a wooden surface. Opening her eyes after shutting them due to the sudden force she had felt from the teleportation, she found herself looking at a small desk that was standing towards the end of the wall of the wooden building they were currently in. The desk was empty, and Sakura wondered where the one they were supposed to meet was. However, she thought to herself, this was it then, she realized that they had arrived at their destination.

She looked at her teammate who was on the other side of Sanyu's body, and his face looked pale. Well, this was to be expected, it was Naruto's first time travelling through such a technique, and Sakura herself had to admit she felt a bit sick after being teleported like that. He lowered his head, then immediately covered his mouth with his hand. The pink-haired girl became concerned about Naruto's well-being, so she immediately rushed to him and began patting his back, in an attempt to relieve him. After a few seconds of Naruto making some gurgled sounds with his mouth as he threatened to vomit the contents of his stomach onto the floor beneath them, he removed his hand from his mouth, and Sakura was relieved to see that he had not thrown up anything at all. Still, she kept her hand on his back, rubbing it up and down to make sure that he was perfectly okay and he wasn't just faking being strong for her sake. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing had occurred, the pink-haired girl thought, with a slight pang of guilt in her heart.

"I'm okay, Sakura-chan. I don't feel sick anymore," her blonde haired teammate said to her, after he had finally managed to straighten up his body. It was the first time he had talked to her ever since they had been on the outskirts of the village, and Sakura felt a bit odd regarding this fact.

"You sure? You were never really mindful about your body during situations like this," the pinkette said, her hand never leaving the small of his back. She was still not thoroughly convinced that he was perfectly okay.

"I'm okay, I'm okay. Look!" Naruto spoke up, bringing his hand to his chest and hitting it lightly to prove that he was okay. Sakura braced herself for him to begin spilling his guts anytime soon, but after seeing that nothing came out, she heaved a sigh of relief and released her hand on his back.

"Well, it seems like it," Sakura said, then at that point she had a voice that did not belong to the girl that had teleported them here speak up. The voice held a tone of authority, and experience, the same voice that her master and Hokage, Tsunade-sama used when speaking to the villagers and handing out orders or affirming praise to them.

"Good work, Sanyu. I'll handle things from here."

Sakura and Naruto slowly turned their heads towards the source of the voice, and their eyes came to rest upon a woman that was seated on the sill of the window that let air into the room. The room itself only had two windows, on both opposite sides of the room, and each window allowed for a full view access of what went on in the streets of the village. Sakura saw that one could see the villagers walking around from the open-air view that was offered by the window where the woman was currently seated on. So that's why there was no one seated at the desk she had seen earlier, Sakura realized. The dark haired woman, whose hair was swaying with the wind from the window she was seated at, slowly turned her head, and like that, emerald eyes met emerald eyes, and finally, Haruno Sakura had come face to face with the person she had been eager to meet ever since she heard her name mentioned in Tsunade's office. Plus the word "marriage" accompanying it, and her teammate's name mentioned in the midst of all that confusion.

Shizuka herself was quite an attractive woman; but being the epitome of beauty as she was in the village, she did not like confining herself to her desk all day and handle tedious documents. Sometimes, she loved taking a seat at the window sill, where she would have a full view of the villagers and whatever activities they were in. Surprisingly, this helped her to settle down more within the office and carry out her duties more diligently, since seeing the villagers bubbling with joy and bursting with life managed to make her happy. After she had accepted her title as village leader fully and decided not to run away from what she truly wanted to do, thanks to her encounter with a certain blonde boy, Shizuka had truly come to appreciate what a beautiful thing it was to live, and to be alive. She would forever be grateful to Uzumaki Naruto for handing her a new lease on life, and with that the ability to enjoy it to the fullest.

So it was with that feeling of joy in her heart, both from seeing the villagers going on with their lives as peacefully as they had always done, and from seeing the man that had made it all possible, that she got off the window sill she had been seated on, and walked towards Naruto. Naruto was a bit surprised to see her walking towards him, but as soon as she had reached him and spread her arms wide, did Sakura finally understand what she was planning to do.

The dark haired woman wrapped Naruto in a hug. Her arms encircled his bigger, firmer ones and enclosed themselves at his back, and Shizuka pressed her head to Naruto's chest, in a position where she could hear his erratic heartbeat. Sakura was astonished at this display of affection, and as she could see the woman's face since she had turned her head in order to have her ear next to Naruto's heart, Sakura realized that she had a smile on her face. She looked so happy being in that moment, that time with the blonde boy in her arms, and Sakura felt a crushing sense of defeat in her heart. Shizuka seemed to care for Naruto almost as much as Sakura did, and was not afraid to show him just how much she had missed him ever since they had parted ways on that port all those years ago.

However, Naruto found he lost for words the umpteenth time that day. First there was the situation with Akako at the village gates, and now there was this. As the shorter, dark-haired woman wrapped her hands around him, Naruto found him unable to find a way through which he could respond to this action. Well, true enough, he had been hugged before unexpectedly by a girl, none other than the apple of his eye, who was in that room with him at that very moment, but at that time, he had found himself lost for words and his eyes widened in surprise as he was finally receiving a hug from the girl of his dreams, who he had dreamed of hugging ever since the first time he had laid eyes on her all those years ago in the Academy. She had hugged him so tenderly after first punching him for being too reckless after his fight with the Akatsuki leader, Pain, and Naruto awkwardly let his arms flay freely on his sides as he found himself unable to respond. Thinking about it now, he had never quite asked Sakura why she had chosen to hug him there and what she meant by that.

Now, here in the present, he had been met by an equally appalling situation, finding himself in the arms of a woman that he had encountered by accident all those years ago on an island that they had gotten off to restock on supplies. True enough, he had disliked the woman's approach on how she was supposed to handle her life by living by the rules of the village that she did not even like herself, but after being able to talk sense into the woman, he had come to take a liking to her and found himself not minding meeting her once more in his life. This was it then, Naruto thought, he had probably being given another chance to encounter his acquaintance from back then, but still, he did not understand why she had chosen to hug him.

So Naruto let his arms remain enclosed in Shizuka's embrace, and smiled brightly at the woman, who had looked up into his blue eyes and found him staring back at her warmly. This caused Shizuka to further melt into her bubble of happiness, and she realized that she would probably not mind staying like that for a longer period of time.

Reality can be quite harsh though.

Sakura cleared her throat a bit too harshly next to the two shinobi, clearly irate by the manner in which Shizuka had chosen to lash herself onto Naruto, seeing it as a quite bothersome act. However, she found herself smiling inwardly at the fact that Naruto had not responded to her hug in any manner, or even chosen to comment anything about it. Somehow this made her feel a bit better since she thought that there was nothing more between Naruto and Shizuka than mere friendship. However, a woman's intuition was a powerful thing, and Sakura decided to keep her guard up in case Shizuka decided to make any more moves on Naruto.

The green eyed girl released Naruto from her embrace, and then looked over at the emerald-eyed girl that was with her in the room at that moment. She looked at her curiously for a while, realizing by the affectionate way in which Naruto had referred to her earlier that this was the girl who he had admitted to loving when he was trying to talk her out of looking for a loveless marriage. Shizuka realized that Haruno Sakura was quite an attractive woman, and could see why Naruto had fallen for someone as pretty as her. Still, that couldn't be the only reason that Naruto was in love with her, since he wasn't a shallow man so much as to love a woman because of her looks alone. No, there was so much more to Haruno Sakura than just her dashing looks, something more that had caused Naruto to fall head over heels for her, and Shizuka was determined to find out what it was in the short time that she and her blonde teammate were going to be in Nadeshiko.

**A/N: **I could easily keep going but since I am starting to feel heavy-eyed I decided to stop the chapter here, to avoid writing when I'm feeling sleepy so as to not rush stuff. Please let me know what you think and thank you for reading.


	6. The Bet

**Chapter 6**

**The Bet**

"Um, Shizuka-san, why did you hug me just now?" The blonde man asked the dark-haired woman, effectively breaking the tension that was present in the air, having been caused by Sakura and Shizuka's fateful encounter. Naruto did this out of curiosity more than anything else. True to his usual air-headedness, he had not noticed the atmosphere that was currently between his pink-haired teammate and the dark-haired girl who he had come across after all that time away from her.

Shizuka stared back at Naruto, breaking her gaze away from the other girl that was present in the room. She smiled at him warmly, before saying to him in her usual, calm tone.

"Well, Naruto that hug just now was a sign of me accepting you into the village. The kunoichi of Nadeshiko have had a long tradition of welcoming the men that we accepted and had come to acknowledge into the village by embracing them warmly, before anything else of course," she finished her explanation with her face expressing the happiness she was experiencing at that moment.

Sakura raised an eyebrow at this, before thinking,"Aha, really now?" Somehow, even if the dark-haired girl had managed to give a decent explanation as to her actions towards Naruto earlier, she still felt something inside her bothering her regarding the entire situation.

She did not like the idea of this village tradition at all.

Her teammate, on the other hand, still seemed lost and confused about the whole matter. He looked at Shizuka curiously, before asking again, not hiding the curiosity and genuine naiveté in his voice," Accepted? What do you mean accepted, Shizuka?"

Sakura could not say she was surprised by this question from Naruto. He wasn't exactly the brightest person in the universe when it came to understanding girls, something that provided a stark contrast between him and his late master. Sakura would have thought that spending all that time around the white-haired man, who spent most of his time writing all those perverted books that were read by their jounin sensei all the time that their team had meetings, would help Naruto come to understand the female mind a little. However, nothing had changed about him. He was still the same old clueless idiot, when it came to women and also loves.

The pink haired girl had a feeling what the answer was, and she was not going to let the dark-haired woman spill it to Naruto. It wasn't even the right time and place for Kami's sake.

"Well, Naruto, simply put, accepting you means that 1 have-"

"Shizuka-sama, can you please explain the mission details to us?" Sakura interjected before the dark-haired woman could run her mouth anymore. She hoped that her teammate could understand what she was trying to do, even if she had quite possibly interrupted one of the most important events of his life in that village.

Luckily to her, Naruto was a sucker for missions and was always eager to look for missions and could not wait to handle them as soon as he was issued the task by the Hokage. The blonde man hit his fist on his hand in remembrance, then said, "Oh!",before looking at the dark-haired woman, his eyes shining with excitement, then he said to her, in a cheerful voice," Yeah Shizuka-san, what's the mission? I'm dying to get one after being bummed for so long!"

The dark-haired girl clicked her tongue silently, to ensure Naruto would not catch on her disappointment after she had been interrupted while she was in the midst of something important. She mentally cursed at the pink-haired girl for her untimely interruption, but as she turned back to head to her desk, she had a feeling that there would be plenty more chances like this, so bidding her time and doing it again would not be too bad. After all, Uzumaki Naruto would be with her for quite a while.

Shizuka took the scroll that was lying on her desk, unsealed it, and then unfolded it to begin reading the specifics of the mission that she had requested of the two.

"Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura, your mission this time is to spend an entire week in Nadeshiko, away from your home village, and enjoy yourselves as much as possible while having your stay with us."

The silence that followed after this statement was deafening.

"Eh?" Naruto was the first one to speak, breaking through the silence. He looked as if he had just received a death sentence. He thought he had misheard Shizuka wrong, as he had thought that when they were being sent here it would involve something difficult that the kunoichi of Nadeshiko were unable to deal with that they had to resort to asking for help from Konoha. This was not what he had expected to hear at all, and he felt a tad disappointed.

Beside him, Sakura was beside herself with anger. She had thought that this was some sort of sick joke by the dark-haired woman in some twisted attempt to make fools of Naruto and Sakura before informing them about their real mission. After all that had happened to her that day and all the stalling that had happened to them, she had felt her anger rising to boiling point and was not going to stand for any more of this nonsense. She opened her mouth to protest, when Shizuka held her hand out in front of her to silence the pink-haired kunoichi. She had a feeling that things would go like this, but since she didn't want a scene to be created in her office, she decided it would be better to smooth things over before the situation went haywire.

"Now, I need you two to listen to me first before jumping to any conclusions. I'm sure that both of you are wondering just what I'm getting at by announcing that you two are going to be taking a vacation in our village before going back to your home. Your Hokage, Tsunade-sama, had told the two of you prior to coming here that you were supposed to come and help us with an issue that had popped up in the village, right?"

She waited a response from Naruto and Sakura, and once she saw them nodding in affirmation to her question, she decided to continue with her explanation.

"Well, the thing is, she lied about the last part. We didn't need any help with anything really, and as you can see, the village is going on as peacefully as it always has. There really was no issue in the first place."

Sakura felt her heart sink in her chest, a slight feeling of betrayal from her Master having been the cause. Of course, there was no reason for Shizuka to lie about this fact; her face portrayed the honesty in her words as much as the genuine expression on her face. Still, she could not understand why her Master had made such a request, finding no reason whatsoever to send them to another village for vacation.

"But why would baa-chan make such a request? I mean if she wanted to send us here for vacation she could have just told us to go to Nadeshiko village and meet up with you, Shizuka-chan, couldn't she?" Naruto asked, voicing the uneasiness that Sakura had been feeling regarding this entire issue. Sakura was glad that he felt as confused as her and didn't just go with the flow of things, even after learning that the details of their mission was a hoax.

Shizuka huffed a little, and closed her eyes, as her memories swam to a night two weeks ago, when she had been to see the blonde village leader of Konoha.

_That night, Tsunade heard a knock on her door as she was still working on some documents that had been left behind from her work during the day. Ever since the war, things had gone back to normal, with the village receiving its usual share of mission requests. Tsunade had grown tired of handling all this work, wanting nothing more than to retire at this point, but since there was no one in the village to who she could hand over the position of Hokage, she realized that she had to hold it for a while longer. After all, the Fence Sitter of Iwagakure, Ohnoki, was still in power after all those years till he had turned into an old man, and he didn't look ready to relinquish the position anytime soon. Tsunade was almost the same age as him, so she had no business whining at that point in time._

_She heard a knock on her window, and was startled. The only person who ever arrived at her office in that manner was her deceased teammate, Jiraiya. Shizune had been sent off early by the Hokage, insisting that she would only be only in the office for a while longer before setting off for the night. Tsunade quickly turned her head in the direction of the window, half-expecting to find an enemy lurking there, when she saw the petite form of a woman standing there, her hair swaying in the wind. She was staring towards the moon. Tsunade found herself a bit taken aback as to who this woman was, but once she turned her face to meet the blonde woman's brown eyes, a flash of recognition crossed Tsunade's face._

_She had seen the woman in Yamato's report regarding Naruto's adventures once he, Gai and Aoba had set off for the Land of Lightning, the Wood-Style User informing her about Naruto's brush with marriage to the younger kunoichi. However, according to Yamato, things had smoothened out between Naruto and Shizuka, so Tsunade found herself wondering why the dark-haired woman had decided to pop up at this point in time. More so, why she had popped up at the window sill when she could have just used the front door and Tsunade would have still welcomed her normally._

_The blonde woman opened her window sill, allowing for the younger kunoichi letting her into the room. She guided herself to the opposite side of the Hokage's desk, and after looking back at the older woman to approve of her making herself comfortable, to which Tsunade nodded, she sat down, facing the blonde woman. Tsunade returned to her seat then after sitting back again, placed her elbows on the desk to face the older woman._

_Shizuka, who had her hands on her lap, was the first one of the two to speak up. "I'm sorry to have appeared like this and on such short notice. I'm assuming that you received a report about me from your shinobi once they had returned, so I hope you'll allow me to skip the introduction part. I did not want to appear from your front gates since I did not want to draw attention to myself. I really hope I am not infringing upon like this."_

_Tsunade was taken aback by the manner in which the girl was talking to her. She was speaking to her in a bit of a rushed manner, but still, her voice contained respect for the older, far more experienced woman. She had been raised well, Tsunade thought. Still, she wanted to know what had brought Shizuka here, although she had a feeling she knew what it was before the woman even spoke up._

"_You're not infringing at all. But, I fail to see what would bring you here at this ungodly hour. Surely you could have waited till morning to tell me about this?"_

_Shizuka felt all the nervousness she had felt earlier towards this woman, having been revered as one of the Legendary Sannin, slowly ebb away. She placed her arms on the locker in front of her, before replying to Tsunade's earlier question._

"_As I said earlier, I did not want to draw attention to myself during the day by appearing when the streets were bustling with activity and filled with people. The darkness in the night provides a good cover. However, the reason I am here is because I wanted to ask if I could borrow the company of one if your shinobi who I happened to come across during his journey, Uzumaki Naruto."_

_Tsunade smiled a little under her hands that were currently shielding her mouth from view, before thinking that she had hit the nail on the head. Well, it wasn't really something that hard to think about. The only person in her village that had managed to leave an impression on the dark-haired woman was apparently the blonde idiot, so of course she would have wanted to see him again. However, Tsunade was still the Hokage of the village, so she was not eager to hand out one of her finest villagers as easily as that._

"_I had a feeling this was the case. But still, I refuse. Uzumaki Naruto is one of the finest shinobi from our village. Handing him over to you would certainly cause discomfort among the villagers, more so now that they regard him as a hero and feel as if he is fit to be the next Hokage after me," Tsunade protested. She understood where the dark-haired woman was coming from, but still, she couldn't let go of one of her own as easily as that. She had come to see Naruto as her own grandchild, just as much as Jiraiya had to. _

_Of course it wouldn't be this easy, Shizuka thought, as she listened to the Hokage's denial of her request. However, she was also quite a determined girl herself, and would not allow herself to return to her village empty-handed. Not after making this trip here, so she had to do her best to make the Hokage see her line of thought._

"_I understand what you mean, Hokage-san. However, I really want him to come and spend time at our village for a week. I'm sure you listened to the entire story that happened between his master and mine, plus how it passed onto us. Naruto managed to talk me out of following a village practice I wasn't happy with following, and made me resolve to become stronger for my people and also so that I would be able to find someone I would be happy with so that I would marry them. While I haven't been successful with finding a man with whom I would wish to spend the rest of my life with, I have done my best as the village leader of Nadeshiko. The women and girls alike in my village look happier and full of life nowadays, and that is due to the way I changed my methods of ruling over my people. I have Uzumaki Naruto to thank for that. So please," Shizuka then proceeded to lower her head before the Hokage, something that caused the blonde woman to widen her eyes in surprise. She had not thought that Shizuka was this serious about the issue, but seeing her gesture at that point; she was dead serious about having Naruto come see her at the village, "allow him to come and spend time in our village. He will be able to relax and enjoy himself in the midst of our kunoichi. I want…him to come and see just how much I've changed, and to give him a proper thank you for enabling me to have this new lease on life. I implore you of this."_

_The dark haired woman finished her request, with her head still lowered in her plea for the Hokage to heed her request. Tsunade sat on her chair, keeping her gaze affixed on the younger kunoichi and pondering over her request. Well, she couldn't just dismiss her cold-heartedly after that honest display of her emotions. Thinking back now, Tsunade realized that her favorite blonde ninja had been quite bored ever since the end of the war, since he didn't get as many chances to leave the village as before on S-class missions or even A-class mission. He usually spent most of his days shut in his house asleep, while the rest of his teammates were caught up in their daily activities. He occasionally left the house from time to time, but this was only to get ramen from the shop and stock up on his fridge supply. Once that was done, he would then disappear from the streets of Konoha and confine himself to the comforts of his house. It was quite a bland and boring way to live, Tsunade realized, and maybe, what the younger shinobi needed right now was a change of pace, a break from the usual village patterns that he had already grown accustomed to ages ago. Shizuka's offer certainly offered what Tsunade thought Naruto needed at the moment, so the blonde woman made her decision._

"_Raise your head, Shizuka. We are both village leaders, there is no need for you to lower your head in my presence while making a request," Tsunade spoke up firmly to the dark-haired woman. Shizuka did as she was asked, and once her green eyes met the brown eyes that were ahead of her, she had hoped that the woman would give her a favorable answer this time round._

"_Well, you certainly do bring forward a strong case, I have to admit. So I will allow you to borrow Uzumaki Naruto for a while. I feel as if he needs this at the moment, just to break him out of the bored cycle he has been living in for a while now," Tsunade replied, and after catching the wisp of a smile that had appeared on Shizuka's face, she continued, "however, I have two conditions that need to be met before I can allow him to go on this mission."_

_Shizuka raised an eyebrow in curiosity, wondering just what the Hokage would ask of her. Still, she needed to get through this if she wanted any chance of being with the blonde ninja, so she asked Tsunade, "What conditions are these that need to be met, Hokage-sama?"_

_Tsunade cast her gaze downwards, cleared her throat, before saying," First of, on no account is Naruto to learn about the specifics of the mission before he arrives at your office. This means that you are to ensure that whatever kunoichi Naruto comes across from your village does not reveal to him the true nature of this mission. Of course, I myself will not reveal the truth about this mission to him, I will instead tell him that an issue cropped up in your village and that I am sending him over in order to assist you. Is that understood?"_

_Shizuka took in each word the Hokage said carefully, before nodding her head in acceptance. Tsunade was well aware that Naruto was the type of person that would vehemently refuse an offer to go on vacation to a foreign land, as he would have preferred to remain in Konoha to do his own things at his own pace. So a well-thought out fib like this would definitely cause him to leave the village in the hopes of handling a mission only he would do. The blonde woman chuckled at the thought on what Naruto's expression would be once he had found out the truth of the mission, but well, that was an issue that he would have to deal with once the time reached._

"_The second condition is that, Naruto needs a partner to go with to your village. I'm not expecting to send him alone, of course, the poor boy might get lost in the woods if I did that…"_

Bringing back herself to the present after narrating all the events that had gone on in Tsunade's office on that fateful night, Shizuka opened her eyes to find herself looking at the duo of Konoha shinobi. Sakura was gritting her teeth in irritation, while Naruto was scratching his hair in frustration. Well, in a sense they had both been duped, so their reactions were understandable.

"That damned old woman!" Naruto exclaimed while still running his hands through his matt of blonde hair. Well, Tsunade had been right about him not accepting the mission otherwise, so this had been a really effective method of getting him off his ass on the village. Still, he could not say that he found the idea of a vacation unwelcome; he had been dying to try out something new ever since things had gone back to normal in the village, so the chance had presented itself with this vacation. Besides, it would be a waste of time and energy returning to the village after they had just reached Nadeshiko, so staying here for a while was actually a pretty good idea. He removed his hands from his head and stared back at Shizuka, his expression a tad relaxed than it had been earlier in the office, and Shizuka was glad to see that he was not opposed to the idea at all, and, to a small extent, that he had not resented her for duping him into leaving his village.

Sakura, on the other hand, was tapping a finger slowly on her elbow while her arms remained crossed at her chest. All the confusion she had been feeling earlier from the circumstances that had landed them into this scenario had all gone away, but still, she felt a bit irate at the fact that her master couldn't trust her to tell her regarding the mission specifics in private, since she could have done a perfect job of keeping the secret from Naruto. She felt a slight sense of disappointment in her master for not trusting her with something like this, but well; it was pointless crying over spilt milk. She would let Tsunade have an earful once she got back to the village. For now, all she had to do was relax and enjoy the rest of the week in the company of her blonde teammate. A small part of Sakura was actually looking forward to this, after having spent quite some time apart from Naruto, this was her chance to finally be with him. Sakura's heart fluttered at the idea, and she had to resist the small tinge of red that threatened to break out on her cheeks at that moment. She focused her gaze to the dark-haired woman that was standing in front of her and Naruto, and once Shizuka saw that there were no more traces of irritation present on her face like earlier, felt satisfied that the two had understood perfectly.

"Now then, since we've gotten all that sorted out, why don't the two of you meet with Sanyu at the office entrance? She will guide you through the village, where there is something waiting for you from the villagers," Shizuka explained to the two teammates. Naruto's eyebrows widened in surprise, and a smile broke out on his face, much to Shizuka's pleasure. Little did she know, Uzumaki Naruto loved surprises, being a stranger to them for most of his life? He turned to the girl beside him, and giggled at her cheekily. Sakura shook her head in defeat, and realizing that her teammate's curiosity was growing by the minute, turned to face the door alongside him, and with that, the two left the office of the village leader.

Once they were gone, Shizuka settled herself into her seat, and once she closed her eyes to enjoy the peace and tranquility that was present in the solitude of her office, she felt a sudden gust of wind appearing behind of her. She opened one of her eyes to meet the face of her attendant and longtime friend, Tokiwa.

Tokiwa was an imposing figure, easily towering over most of the kunoichi in the village. She had a slender physique with a very angular face framed by her short brown hair along with a dark shade of red lipstick. She was clad in a short, backless, red, full-body suit over mesh armor, along with a pair of arm-length gloves and a light orange sash, a long blue green apron skirt which is open in the front. She also wore bandages on her wrists, covering all of her right left as well as her left thigh and leg. She carries an extremely long and thin katana strapped to her back.

"You're back then, Tokiwa?" Shizuka spoke to the elder woman, a hint of happiness in her question. She had sent Tokiwa on a mission outside the village for a period of three days, and while she knew that Tokiwa was strong, she could not help but worry for her safety each time the woman left the village on a duty assigned to her by Shizuka. Having the woman return at that moment set Shizuka's heart at ease.

The older woman placed a hand on her hip, before replying, "I was back a few minutes ago, Shizuka-sama. Why didn't you tell them the full truth of what happened that night in the Hokage's office?"

Shizuka was taken aback by what Tokiwa asked her. "So you were listening in then? Eavesdropping isn't a good habit." She teased the elder woman, but seeing that Tokiwa still held the same stern gaze on her that she had been having for a while now, placed her hands on her hips and then said, in a lower tone than before," He doesn't need to know about that now. If he did it would probably make him resent me, and knowing that would break my heart. He will learn when the time is right."

"And when will the time be right?" Tokiwa exclaimed, a hint of annoyance present in her voice. She had clearly not been pleased by what Shizuka had done earlier, and intended for her to set things straight as soon as possible.

The dark-haired woman closed her one open eye again, her memories drifting to that night in the Hokage's office not so long ago.

_Shizuka nodded in response to the Hokage's second request, having in her mind a faint idea of who Tsunade would send on that mission with Naruto. However, she was still pleased that she had been successful in what she had come here to do, so she prepared herself to get up and leave the Hokage's office._

"_Wait."_

_Tsunade spoke up to the dark-haired woman, as she had gotten wind that she was preparing to exit the office. The blonde woman wasn't quite done with Shizuka yet, and she wanted to confirm something from Shizuka._

"_Is there something else left, Hokage-sama?" Shizuka asked, uncertain of what the older woman was going to say to her now._

"_Yes, and it has to do with what brought you here tonight. While I believe as much as you said that you want to spend time with Naruto in your village as part of a chance for him to rest and have a taste of fresh air, I find it difficult to believe that is the only reason that brought you here today. Am I right?" Tsunade questioned the woman, keeping her eyes fixed to Shizuka's expression. Something had not been sitting right with her all this time, ever since the dark-haired woman explained her reasons for having Naruto over at her village, and the Hokage was intending to get to the bottom of it._

_Shizuka's eyes widened in surprise as she listened to the Hokage's query. Well, she had to hand it to the Medical Ninja; she had not expected to keep it hidden from her for long. More like, she was going to inform the Hokage once she had successfully managed to accomplish what she had on her mind for a while now. Still, now that the Hokage had managed to see through her ruse, there was no point of keeping it hidden any longer, so Shizuka decided to spill the beans._

"_I wasn't exactly planning to keep it hidden from you, Hokage-sama. But the matter itself is quite, sensitive, in a matter of speaking," Shizuka said, and after looking at the Hokage, who looked all ears ready to listen to her explanation, decided to continue. "The truth is, after the recent events of the Fourth Ninja War, Uzumaki Naruto's fame has grown as the hero who saved the Shinobi World, and of course our village was not spared from these tales of his glory. News of my encounter with him also reached the villagers' ears, and since the general reception that was received was that Naruto was a really nice person, who also had his fair share of looks, most of the women in the village have developed, as I would put it, affections for the blonde man." Tsunade's eyebrow rose in surprise, but since it all made sense to her; she decided not to question the issue too much. Allowing Shizuka to continue her explanation, so that she could see where she was going with this, as she did not seem as if she was quite done yet. _

"_I have to also admit that I myself have found myself enchanted by Uzumaki Naruto, and I think about him more than I probably should. After days and days of this happening, and the general talk about him in the village, I have come to a conclusion that I would love to spend a lot of time with him, possibly for the rest of my life. So I have come to you seeking Uzumaki Naruto's hand in marriage, and since I am sure that most of the kunoichi in our village feel the same way I do, the one week rest period offers a chance for me to win him over and make him mine," Shizuka concluded her explanation. Her expression had remained the same, stoic one she always donned as she had begun revealing her desire and wish to the Hokage._

_Tsunade was quite astonished with the honest manner in which Shizuka had brought her case forward to the Hokage, and had to admit she was amazed at her straightforward nature and how she was not afraid to say what she really wanted. However, something baffled her about this. Ever since she had met the blonde loudmouthed ninja all those years ago in that town, never had she believed that any girl would come seeking his hand in marriage. Tsunade was well aware that Naruto loved Sakura deeply, owing to that time in the hospital where he had seen Sakura embrace Sasuke, and the hurt expression on his face was all that Tsunade needed to know that he felt very strongly about the pink-haired girl. She had the impression that Naruto would always love Sakura, no matter what other shows of affections he received from other girls._

_Still, Tsunade found herself being amused by this entire situation that she giggled a little, suppressing the laughter that threatened to break out and alert the shinobi walking outside anyway. It was sort of ridiculous that if she did not have an idea of what the dark-haired girl was like, she would have dismissed what she had said earlier as a really bad joke. However, she knew Shizuka was not the type to joke about something as serious as marriage, owing to the young girl's terrible ordeal with love in the past. Shizuka stared at the older woman as she giggled, while keeping her remarks to herself, as she awaited the older woman's response._

_Once Tsunade had managed to regain her composure, and was able to looka t the dark-haired woman seriously again, she said," It might be impossible you know. Naruto already has a girl who he has devoted himself to; although I'm sure you may have an idea of this already."_

_Memories of her conversation with Naruto in that valley surfaced in Shizuka's mind, but nonetheless she clenched her fist and said in response," I am well aware of the fact that Naruto loves Sakura, but still, I'm not going to change my mind. If there was one thing I learned from him, it was that you should always try your hardest to win over the one you loved, regardless of whether they held affections for someone else or not."_

_Tsunade found herself impressed by the girl's answer, and found she nearly conceding defeat in that matter. However, at that moment, an idea flashed in her mind, and she grinned as she thought of something interesting. She decided to voice her offer to the dark-haired woman, hoping that she had a penchant for participating in bets. _

"_Okay, I'll make a bet with you on this matter."_

"_A bet, Tsunade-sama? What are we placing bets on, if I may ask?" Shizuka asked curiously again._

"_The period of time is the one week allotted for the vacation. If, and only if, you manage to win over Naruto in that one week and make him fall head over heels for you, I'll allow you to marry him, as you wish."_

_Tsunade explained, and the bright glint she got in the younger kunoichi's eyes just then was all the confirmation she needed to know that Shizuka was okay with going through with this bet. Still, that did not stop the Nadeshiko village head from asking the next rational question anyone would ask in this situation._

"_And if I fail to win him over?"_

_Tsunade smiled. "You will reveal to his teammate, Haruno Sakura, who I'm sending on this mission with him, about the feelings that Naruto holds in his heart for her, not missing a single word of what he told you about his feelings for her when you first met him."_

_Shizuka was surprised by Tsunade's reply, but still, a bet was a bet. Failing to honor your side of the bet was poor sportsmanship, and she was needed to be diligent in all her dealings as the village leader. She closed her eyes a little in thought, then after a second of thought, opened them again to respond to the older woman._

"_Okay, I agree to the bet."_

Shizuka then turned to look at her attendant who had been standing behind her, and responded to her earlier question.

"When I win him over."

**A/N: **As promised, here is the update, although it is way too early for this chapter to be out, but well it isn't bad treating fans once in a while is it? Don't forget to read and review, and thank you for all the support so far. Enjoy!


	7. A Warm Welcome

**Chapter 7**

**A Warm Welcome**

The two members of Team Seven slowly descended the stairs leading to the exit of the building they were currently in. Surprisingly, they had already been through two flights of stairs on their way down from Shizuka's office, which revealed to the pink haired girl that this office was probably bigger than she had originally thought. She felt grateful to the auburn haired girl for teleporting them directly to the village head's office, saving them the exhaustion they would otherwise feel if they decided to walk the whole way to her office.

However, as she trudged down the wooden steps, she found herself continually getting distracted by what had just transpired in the dark-haired woman's office. It was her first time coming face to face with Shizuka, and well, the woman certainly beat all of Sakura's expectations of what she was like. Having the same eye color as the pink haired girl, Sakura had to admit that the heavens were certainly generous with how they blessed the female warrior. Her body proportions would set any man's mind affray, and her bust size was certainly not something to scoff at. Sakura meekly shifted her eyes towards her own, small bust, and then sighed dejectedly in mild defeat. More so, the attire that Shizuka had worn was certainly eye-catching, revealing to those who dared to look a small glimpse of what lay inside. Sakura could not help but feel that in some ways, she could not match the dark-haired woman.

Additionally, she could not help but be bothered by the manner in which the dark-haired woman greeted Naruto once he and Sakura graced her office with their presence. The events were still vivid in Sakura's mind, as she remembered watching Shizuka waste no time in leaping to hug the taller, blonde man. She gently wrapped her arms around him, resting her petite head in his larger, manly chest. Sakura could still remember the way Shizuka's face beamed with glee as she rested herself on Naruto, and at the same time, could vaguely remember just how erratic her heart beat had been at that moment. Of course, she would have told Shizuka to back off if she were in more familiar circumstances, but since the two teammates were in unfamiliar territory, Sakura had chosen to silence herself and keep her remarks to herself. It would not do well to foster enmity while they were still guests within Nadeshiko village.

"_Jealous?"_

Honoka's words reverberated in Sakura's mind as she replayed the events that had occurred in that office, and at that moment, she realized that the green haired woman could not have been more right. Sakura could feel her heart rate steadily increasing once she realized how close the relationship between Shizuka and Naruto was, owing to the relaxed aura she had around him, and could not help but feel left out. Of course, it would not do her well to jump to conclusions so early when she only knew about the woman from what Naruto had told her, but still, Sakura did not want to be caught by surprise again, like she had been a while ago when a certain lavender haired woman had jumped to Naruto's rescue.

_Sakura's mind shifted to the time that the village had been devastated by the Akatsuki Leader, Pain, and her blonde teammate had shifted the location of his battle with the orange haired man after his previous onslaught when he was in the Nine-Tails mode. Sakura had been summoned to the previous location where Naruto and Pain had been locked in fierce combat, to the aid of Hyuuga Hinata. As she proceeded to heal the Hyuuga girl, Hinata's guardian, who had been left moments earlier as the white eyed girl rushed to Naruto's aid, narrated to them all that had transpired from the moment she left him to the moment she was defeated by the Rinnegan wielder._

_The pink haired girl found herself amazed with how Hinata had put herself out there in order to save Naruto, something that she had been wishing to do herself for a while now but didn't know how. She had berated herself once in the presence of her captain, Yamato, about how the only things she did for Naruto were small and unimportant things. The Wood User smiled at her reassuringly, before telling her that all that mattered were her feelings for Naruto. Of course, back then Sakura had taken these words to heart, telling herself that what she felt for Naruto was enough and that she didn't have to push herself so hard for him. However, as she cast the green glow from her hands on the Hyuuga's limp body, she felt that she was not sure whether it was enough any more._

"_Hinata, you love Naruto?" _

_These thoughts ran through Sakura's mind and unknown to her, she had begun looking at the girl beneath her in a somber manner. She was not sure exactly what to feel at the fact that Hinata had professed her love to Naruto, so she decided to shift that matter to the back of her head._

Back to the present, she found herself being conflicted over the same matter, although with a different girl this time. Sakura was almost fully convinced that Shizuka held a special place in her heart for the blonde boy next to him, owing to the manner in which she looked at him and how she joyfully conversed with him. Knowing that yet another girl was contending for Naruto's heart made Sakura feel oddly lonely, since she was not sure how well she would take to the presence of another female figure in the man's life, after spending most of her life as a ninja by his side. She held pride in the fact that she was the girl who Naruto spent most of his time around within the village, and realized that if another person intruded upon her current comfort with him, things would definitely change. She was not sure whether she was ready for such a drastic change in her relationship with Naruto.

Adding to her earlier sentiments, she could not help but fear that one day Naruto would grow tired and weary of pursuing her and go readily into the arms of a woman that already held affection for him. While she knew it was wrong of her to feel this way and that it was borderline selfish of herself, she still could not feel comfortable with the knowledge of the fact that Naruto might give up on her one day and choose someone else over her.

"_You know if you continue dawdling around him another girl will steal him, for example, Shizuka."_

A small, inner voice within her told her. Sakura was startled by her conscience at that moment, immediately jumping to her own defense on the matter.

"_Hey I do my own fair share to get close to him to, you know."_

"_Uh-huh, for example?_

Sakura made to respond to her conscience, but then found her lacking anything meaningful to say. She could not think of any possible retort she could come up to this remark, which made her realize that she may have not been trying anything in order to let Naruto know how she had began feeling about him a while back. At that moment, however, the most recent example came to mind, so she immediately made to respond to her conscience.

"_I hugged him once he returned to the village after his fight with Pain!"_

The pink haired girl responded to her conscience quickly, her voice brimming with the confidence that she felt from that gesture. Thinking back on it, she realized that she had wrapped Naruto in her arms in the presence of the kids that had surrounded him at that moment, and unknowingly, in the presence of their silver haired teacher, Hatake Kakashi as well. Her cheeks flushed slightly as she became slightly embarrassed at how strongly she had expressed herself at that moment.

"_Good work, Sakura. But ask yourself this, what good came from that?"_

Sakura found she dumfounded by this simple question, and came to a shocking realization that nothing had changed since back then. Naruto had still treated her with the same love and care that he always did, and remained oblivious to her growing affection for him. Sakura then feared that Naruto probably carried on with his life with the assumption that he was the only one among the two that held affection for the other. The thought made her feel strangely sad. Well, she realized it herself. Naruto was probably too dumb to realize what she meant back then when she hugged him in that manner. It wasn't really much of a long shot, since he reacted the same way when Shizuka had embraced him in her office as well.

"_I'm glad you finally realized it. Keep in mind that Naruto is as dense as he looks, so I think he may have not caught on to what you meant back then. If you want him to really know how you feel, you need to be more direct about it. For example, by revealing them to him?_

Sakura immediately realized just how warm her cheeks had grown from that remark, and shook her head to rid herself of the idea that popped in her mind. No. Never. It was completely out of the question. There was no way she was going to do something that embarrassing to her long-time friend. The last time she did it, in the Land of Iron, it came with devastating consequences, as Naruto saw through what she was intending to do and stopped her. At that point, Sakura had been utterly shocked at the harsh manner in which he had called her off, and for a maddening second, she thought that he no longer held the same feelings he had for her. Of course, she would later come to be proven wrong, since he referred to her as his girlfriend in the presence of the Fourth Hokage once he arrived at the battlefield. If Sakura half-heartedly decided to pour her heart out to Naruto again, he would probably lose his patience with her, thinking that she took him for a fool, and worst case scenario abandon her since he would think of her as nothing but deceitful. There was no way Sakura was going to put him through that anguish, so she decided to bottle these feelings to herself.

Unfortunately for her, however, she hid her saddening feelings a tad too late. Naruto, who had been walking step in step with her, found himself growing increasingly concerned with how she had not said anything ever since they had exited Shizuka's office. He had expected her to comment on what she thought of Nadeshiko village, since Sakura was not exactly the type to keep quiet when she found herself in a new environment. The blonde turned his head to meet Sakura's face just as she resolved herself not to let Naruto not to learn about her blossoming feelings for her, catching sight of her slightly flushed face and the solemn look in her eyes at that moment.

Naruto gasped in worry, realizing that there was something totally amiss at the moment. The first thought that came to his mind was that she was probably not feeling too comfortable about her first time in this village, so he set himself to making things better for her. Immediately, he stepped in front of her, halting her progress, and catching the pink haired girl by surprise as she became aware of the man now standing in front of her. She looked up into Naruto's cerulean eyes, wondering what he was up to. Slowly, Naruto reached out his large hand, placing it on Sakura's equally as large forehead, startling her with the warmth that emanated from his palm. She then realized what he was doing, moments before he asked her out loud.

"Sakura-chan, are you feeling okay? You don't look too fine," Naruto questioned the Medic, and Sakura found herself feeling a bit sad about this. Even in such a situation, where she had been battling her inner feelings in order to protect him from the pain she would ultimately cause him if she decided to follow her heart, he was still placing her before his well-being. Naruto had never been afraid to express what he felt for her, and the thought made Sakura's heart sink a few paces within her chest. However, she found herself lacking the courage to call him out for this show of selflessness, effectively settling for a slight nod.

Naruto then smiled softly at her, before slowly withdrawing his hand from her forehead. However, as he prepared himself to resume his original position beside her, he suddenly felt a small tug behind him. Curiously, Naruto looked back to see who was it that had touched him, finding that it had been Sakura. She grasped towards the edges of his orange jacket weakly, as if giving him a chance to pull away if he wanted to. It was Naruto's turn to pause in mid-motion, as he simply looked back to the face of the pink-haired girl behind him, which had an expression etched on it that he could not exactly point out. Still, since it was different from the usually readable expressions that graced her face most of the times, he realized that it was a definite cause for worry.

"Sakura-chan-" Naruto started, but at that moment, his teammate's voice cut across his own, catching him in mild surprise.

"Naruto, I-" Sakura said, and for a maddening second she was gripped by the desire to pour out all that she was feeling at the moment right there and then to the blonde man. Sakura had no second thoughts regarding the fact that Naruto would definitely lend an ear to all her woes, owing to the concern he had expressed for her regarding her odd behavior, and she wanted to let out all the conflict she was experiencing at that moment in her heart which was centered on him. She would have, if it wasn't for the interference that chose to show up at that precise moment.

"Come on, Naruto-sama , Sakura-san, you're missing out on a lot in our home!" A third voice immediately cut across the serene atmosphere that Naruto and Sakura were currently enjoying at the moment. Immediately, the pink-haired girl was pulled back to her senses as she immediately let go of Naruto's jacket, praying that whoever had spoken to both of them had not witnessed her moment of weakness just then. At that moment, she realized that both she and her teammate were on the final flight of stairs that led to the village, owing to the light that sprung forth from beneath them as they descended to the outside.

"Sorry about that, Sanyu-san. It was quite a walk getting here from Shizuka's office," Naruto responded to the young girl that had been assigned as their escort whilst they were in the village. Sakura felt a wave of relief wash over her as she realized that the auburn-haired girl was at the centre of the exit, her hands placed on her waist as she eagerly waited for the blonde man and his pink haired teammate to walk towards her. She allowed herself to breathe a little as she realized that the girl had probably not seen Sakura hold on to Naruto's jacket at that point, as the larger man shielded most of her body from view.

Naruto gleefully descended down the flight of stairs, his earlier curiosity and eagerness for adventure within this new village overwhelming him. Behind him, Sakura, having recomposed herself and managing to rid her mind of the thoughts that were plaguing her moments ago, walked quickly in order to catch up to him so as to not be left behind. However, she took note of the relaxed manner in which Naruto had addressed Sanyu, and realized that Naruto probably felt more comfortable around her than he did the ever-serious Akako. Well, it wasn't really a far-off thought. The red-haired girl seemed as if she could kill with just her stare alone if you dared cross her, a stark contrast to the cheerful girl before them. It reminded Sakura of how she acted as a girl, and the nostalgia brought a warm smile to her face. She could not help but chuckle, however, at the differences in behavior of Naruto around the two girls.

Finally finding their place next to the guard, who was in the same uppity mood she had been in at the gate once she realized who Naruto was. She did not have the spear that was in her hands that morning, and was clad in much more casual clothes than she had when she was on her duty. A pink kimono, which had imprints of flowers on various spots, plus her hair had been tied up into a bun with a pin placed in it to hold it in place. The pin itself was brown, and at the end, had the imprint of a flower etched into its design, giving the girl an extremely attractive aura. Sakura found herself impressed with the simple manner in which she had dressed, yet the alluring charm that came from her was something she was scarce experienced to in her time in Konoha. She wondered if this was the girl's normal choice of attire while within the walls of her village.

Beside her, Naruto had his mouth open in surprise as he was clearly impressed by how attractive Sanyu was at the moment. Sanyu, catching wind of how Naruto had his eyes on her at the moment, twirled in her vibrant kimono, and the cloth followed her brilliantly in suit. Once she had resumed her original position, she looked at Naruto, who was still dazed by the way she was dressed.

Sanyu broke the silence that had enveloped the trio. "Well, Naruto, you have anything you want to say to me?" At that point, the amazement Sakura had been feeling ebbed away and she felt a vein throb in her forehead. It was the same feeling she had felt at the village entrance when Sanyu had referred to Naruto as '-sama.' The nerve of this girl! Sakura did not like the overly confident manner in which she talked to Naruto, since it reminded her of the way she was as a girl when she was still fawning over Sasuke because of his cool demeanor plus dashing looks. It made her feel slightly ashamed of herself, seeing her behavior from a third party point of view at that point.

"You look really good, Sanyu. Really wonderful," Naruto responded, having regained enough of his senses to respond to the younger girl. Of course, Sanyu smiled bashfully at his compliment, offering a vibrant display of her milk-white teeth, before appreciating his remark. "Why thank you, Naruto." Sakura could swear that she could spot a trace of red on the girl's cheeks at that point. However, she spoke up again, ridding herself of the embarrassment she had been feeling at Naruto's honest remark. It was the first time a man had ever complimented her in her life, but then again, Uzumaki Naruto was the first man she had the pleasure of coming across, having spent most of her life training herself as a young warrior. To her delight, the hero had been everything she had imagined him to be in her dreams. The realization set her at ease. "You can refer to me as Sanyu, no need for the honorifics. I've never really been a fan of honorifics anyway," she said, smiling nervously as she was not sure whether she was making an odd request.

Naruto folded his hands on his chest in thought, as he tilted his head to one side. Beside him, Sakura found his behavior a tad amusing. Well, it was certainly the first time that he had ever been asked to do such a thing, much less by a girl, so Naruto's behavior was understandable at that point. Unfolding his hands from his chest, he turned to the auburn haired girl again, smiling brightly at her. "Sure thing then! Well, it may take some time, but I'll try…Sanyu," Naruto responded to the girl, the last part of his statement a bit strained since he still had his doubts whether he should talk to her so familiarly. The kimono-clad girl before him closed her eyes and reflected his earlier smile, feeling elated that she had managed to eliminate the awkwardness that existed between her and Naruto, and bridging the gap between him and her a little.

"So, Sanyu-san," Sakura started, clearly finding it hard to take to the girl's overly confident aura, owing to the slight edge in her voice," where are we supposed to head to next? Your village head said that there was a surprise that was waiting for us," she concluded, fixing the girl with a slightly impatient expression. The auburn haired girl looked toward Sakura, repaying her with a stern expression of her own too, but realizing that Naruto was still in her presence, managed to sweeten her voice, then respond in her slightly fake tone," But of course, I will lead you there immediately." Around the three, the sky had turned a striking shade of red, as the sun retreated behind the mountains in the distant horizon. The evening was slowly setting in.

The Nadeshiko kunoichi reached out for Naruto's idle hand with her own, hoping and praying that his good nature would not prevent him from accepting her gesture of hospitality. Naruto, who was a bit befuddled to the nature of her behavior at that point, realized what she was planning to do, so he allowed himself to relax in her presence. But of course, he had not caught on to the subtle message that the girl was expressing as she took her hand into her smaller, fairer one. Still, Sanyu found she content with that, realizing that with matters of the heart, it was best to go one step at a time. To her glee, and much to Sakura's chagrin, Naruto allowed her to take his hand, placing his faith in the woman that he was in good hands. Her small hand wrapped around his warmer, big hand, the girl turned back, walking towards the centre of the village, which was currently bustling with activity. Naruto felt himself being carried forward by the smaller girl, before he looked back at Sakura, shooting an expression at her to follow him and trust what Sanyu was doing. The Medical Ninja, who had her hands folded at her chest in a show that she was slowly losing her patience, added to the rather fast manner in which she was tapping her elbows, sighed a little, before releasing her strained posture and allowing herself to be guided by this woman, who she still had second thoughts about.

As the trio of one man and two girls trudged on through the village in a rather slow manner, since Sanyu wanted them to see as many features as possible about her home, that she was overly proud of, Sakura took the chance to look around her surroundings, taking in things that particularly stood out to her. Surprisingly, there were no outstanding differences between this village and Konoha, since most of the buildings were mid-sized such as in the Leaf Village, with no outstanding sky scrapers or any particularly tall buildings of the sort. Sakura curiously noted that most of the residents she came across were all women, but they were surprisingly few, meaning they had not reached the especially populated section of the town, further certifying her academy lessons regarding the families in this village were all organized through a system of matrilineality. It was actually quite an impressive thing; she had to admit, since it was probably the only uni-gender nation in the Shinobi World.

Ahead of her, Naruto himself had a jubilant expression on his face, as his eyes darted from one corner of the village to another, taking in as many features of the village as possible. Taking in all the markets, shops, and other infrastructure that was present in the village, he realized just how much he had missed such an adventure in his life for a while. While he was usually the first to ask for a mission where he would get the chance to show off his skills and growth as a Ninja to his Hokage, there were times when he just longed for a missions where he could get away from the usually monotonous sights and features that he had gotten so used to viewing whenever he was in Konoha. Naruto loved his village, of course, probably more than any other resident in that place, but there were times when he wished for greener pastures, a break from the life he had gotten so used to. Being in a new village, especially one that belonged to an old acquaintance of his, it was finally his chance to have a fresh breath of air, and in his mind he felt a sudden rush of appreciation for the dark-haired woman they had left in her office a while back.

Just as they reached a particularly crowded section of the street, owing to the large number of people that were moving to and fro across the street, Sakura found it increasingly hard to spot the important buildings that were etched in the town as they were continuously blocked by the flurry of people present. She could only catch glimpses of the roofs of buildings, and her facial expression dulled to show the disappointment she was feeling at that moment. As she was about to resign herself to just following suit with Naruto and the woman who had his hand in his at that moment, her ears caught sight of something interesting, sourcing from the voices that were all around her.

"Hey, isn't that-?"

"Yeah, it's Uzumaki Naruto."

"Waaah, so the rumors were true then. He really did come to our village-"

"He's so hot! I wish I could have him in my place right now!"

"Idiot! Watch your mouth! Don't you see that girl leading him and the one behind him?"

"Sanyu, huh? She really looks amazing."

"The girl behind him might be his lover-"

Whispers and conversations regarding Naruto's arrival to the Maiden Village jumped from left to right, and at the last statement she picked up, of a random stranger who thought of her as Naruto's lover, immediately embarrassed her. A small part of her, however, felt a surge of pride that she was being viewed as the boy's lover by a few eyes in the village. Sakura suddenly realized the massive attention they were drawing from the people around them and the gazes and stares that followed them as they made their way down the bustling streets. Flushed, as she was not particularly used to this large amount of attention from people she was not aware of, she focused her gaze towards her front, where her fellow companions were, hoping that this way she would become less aware of all the eyes on her at the moment. To her surprise, however, Naruto was still looking at the village and still taking in its lovely features, oblivious to everyone's eyes on him at that moment. Ahead of him, Sanyu politely greeted all the villagers who happened to cross her path, her pleasantries even extending an old woman who was selling fruits by a stand at the side of the street. Well, she certainly was polite when the situation called for it, Sakura admitted, feeling a little respect for the woman.

Suddenly, on the path before the trio, a woman appeared, effectively blocking their journey. Sanyu stopped, her sudden movement drawing Naruto closer to her where she could feel the warmth emanating from his body, and she felt a tad embarrassed. Luckily, Sakura had not sighted this slight misunderstanding, her eyes focused on the woman who stood in their path. And she was not wrong to focus her attention on the woman, as the streets had fallen oddly silent, all eyes shifted to the new person that had just appeared.

Said woman had unnaturally blonde hair that fell in waves towards her shoulders, and her eyes were a dashing shade of yellow. She was clad in an a top that ended just above her belly, exposing her navel, and the lower half of her body was dressed in an equally short skirt, which fell to above her knees. Her legs were slender, a factor that only added to her allure, since she had a generally slender frame to the rest of her body. Her top graciously revealed some of her luscious cleavage, plus the inner mesh vest she had underneath, giving her a distant resemblance to Mitarashi Anko in that aspect.

The woman's name was Yoshiko, and she was currently the village's most beautiful woman, having emerged successful in the last 'Most Beautiful Kunoichi' contest that was organized by the village, an event that was organized annually by the village leader, with the assistance of her advisors. Of course, one would wonder what part of such an attractive woman screamed 'kunoichi', but one had to look at the sword that was strapped to her back. The sword's name was **Adira, **a fitting name for a sword that was bestowed upon the most beautiful woman in the village. Yoshiko had acquired the sword after her victory in the beauty contest, as a testament to her stunning looks.

There was also the tiny fact that the woman was Sanyu's idol, and Yoshiko, being a really nice person, had taken on the student on as an apprentice. This was the reason that Sanyu decided to take upon clothing which she felt would be appealing not only to herself, but to her beloved master as well.

Yoshiko, immediately catching sight of the two who were accompanying her apprentice from a nearby dango store, made to walk towards the trio, in order to satiate her growing curiosity over the fact that one Uzumaki Naruto had graced the village with his presence. As she drew closer and closer to the group now in the middle of the street, and the boy with blonde hair and cerulean eyes came closer and closer within her line of view, she realized that the rumors were actually true. A wicked smile immediately adorned her facial features, as she found herself become enchanted by Uzumaki Naruto's dashing looks. As many as the rumors regarding him circulated throughout the village, as a result of Shizuka's tale regarding the boy, some of the villagers had a faint idea of what Uzumaki Naruto looked like. Sadly, Yoshiko was none of the lucky few. She was a bit disgruntled at this fact, since it gave her the slight painful feeling of being left out. However, with herself currently in the presence of the golden boy, she realized that he looked like something out of her wildest dreams. With her pride as the village's most beautiful woman, she realized that having a man like him by her side would certainly be the cherry on top of her recently acquired fame. Besides, he looked like a generally nice guy, so having someone that nice for a lover would make her life more colorful than it already was.

Resolving herself as she finally came face to face with her student plus her escorts; she smiled to the auburn haired girl, who found herself at a loss of words and a blush on her cheeks. Sakura, who had noted the behavior of the surrounding people plus the girl before them towards the newly appeared person in silence, realized that Yoshiko was probably someone prominent in the village. While she was glad that all the attention had been shifted away from them for the time being, she was still aware that all attention had now gone to the blonde beauty, who was now in their company, so she was not sure whether to feel grateful to the new face or not. Still, she looked like a fairly amiable person, so Sakura made the point to be on her best behavior before the new face.

"Hello, allow me to welcome you to Nadeshiko village," her voice was silky smooth, and a few passing girls became weak at the knees at the voice of their beloved idol, before she continued, paying no heed to the kids since she was used to such reactions from her fellow female villagers," well, I'm sure our village leader has already welcomed you here, so take this as an added act of hospitality." Sakura found she impressed with the graceful manner in which this girl was conversing with them, each word that came out of her mouth was brimming with a recognizable level of respect towards them, and smiled a little at the maturity of this woman. Her earlier impression of this woman had not been betrayed, and she found herself a second person she could tolerate within this new village, aside from the green haired girl at the gate, Honoka. "My name is Yoshiko. What's yours?"

"Uzumaki Naruto! Pleased to meet you!" Naruto responded before his female teammate could form a coherent response, his voice carrying that usual joyous tone of his, and shooting a vibrant smile at the woman. At this reply, Yoshiko raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, not expecting to be bombarded with the boy's enthusiasm off the mark like that. She had to admit, out of all the men she had encountered on her expeditions outside the village; Uzumaki Naruto was not quite like any of them. He seemed…..different. She felt herself filling with delight at the opportunity to meet such a refreshing man, as the ones she had encountered before did not seem overly interested in making acquaintances with her, their desires lying with her body and the fortune she carried on her back as a resident of the successful Maiden Village. With Naruto though, it seemed things would be completely different. Stifling a giggle as she covered her mouth with her hand, she allowed herself a moment to catch her breath before proceeding with the pleasantries.

"I'm Haruno Sakura. His teammate," Sakura brusquely introduced herself, once she noticed that Yoshiko had stopped giggling. She felt a sense of resulting from the fact that Naruto had not acted like a bumbling fool in front of the girl, as most of the villagers had acted once she had opened her mouth and they heard her alluring voice. She focused her green eyes to the girl's yellow eyes, a relaxed gaze in her look, and Yoshiko smiled in earnest to the girl's response. Somehow, Sakura had a feeling that the smile was not all that genuine. Yoshiko, on the other hand, could not help but feel that Sakura's presence in the village, along with her relationship to the blonde boy she had set her eyes on, might prove to be an obstacle in the near future. She pushed those thoughts to the back of her head, however, choosing to simply enjoying making the acquaintance of the fabled Uzumaki Naruto for the first time.

"Um, Yoshiko-sama-" Sanyu began, clearly struggling to form a sentence in the dazzling presence of the village idol. Even after she had been taken on as an apprentice, the smaller, younger girl had found herself charmed by the older girl on plenty of occasions, such as now. She knew it was unbecoming of her, of course, so she did her best to overcome the shyness and embarrassment she felt within the woman's presence. Yoshiko responded before the girl would ask why she had showed up there. "Calm down, Sanyu-chan. I simply came here to accompany you to the village centre. That is where you are headed, right?" she inquired, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. As much as Yoshiko was adored by the folks of her village, she did not make a point of keeping up to track with any events that were organized by the village. For example, a festival held in honor of the arrival of Uzumaki Naruto.

"Yes!" Sanyu replied a bit hurriedly. Yoshiko smiled sweetly at the girl, before stretching out a hand and lightly touching the top of the girl's soft hair. Sanyu felt the reddening on her cheeks increase with her mentor's show of affection and appreciation, while Sakura held back a chuckle at the amusement of the scene ahead of her. Naruto, well, was still engrossed with taking in the village sights, so he really was not paying attention to whatever was happening before him.

So it was with that, that the quartet of Sanyu, Sakura, Yoshiko and Naruto headed towards the village centre, where unknowingly to Naruto and Sakura, there was going to be a festival organized to welcome them into the village. At this point however, Sanyu had let go of Naruto's hand, as she walked side by side next to her mentor, the two engaged in conversation. Naruto walked side by side with his pink-haired teammate, both hands behind his back as he followed the duo of the women before him.

Sakura, immediately realizing that she had not gotten a chance to have a good talk with Naruto ever since they were intercepted by the guards at the Village Gate, took this as her chance to finally have a talk with Naruto. Besides, she had yet to offer her opinion regarding the place they were currently in, so there were loads of things she could talk with him about at that moment. Although there was one particular thing that stood out at the forefront of her mind, she thought, as she cheekily drew next to him and nudged his shoulder with hers.

"Well, Naruto, you seem to be quite the ladies man here," Sakura playfully remarked, finding something to tease her teammate about. Well, it was true; after all, the boy was drawing a really large number of looks everywhere he walked. "You may be more popular than Sasuke at the moment!" She concluded, with a slightly higher tone and the same playful tone that she had been using before.

Naruto, who became aware at the contact made between him and his teammate, cast a look of confusion at her. Leave it to Uzumaki Naruto to be out of touch with the current situation. "Wait, they are looking at me? I thought they were looking at the blonde pretty girl plus Sanyu," Naruto responded, his voice carrying a hint o uncertainty. Then again, Naruto was never one to be the centre of attention for pretty girls, which honor always went to his best friend, Uchiha Sasuke, as Sakura had mentioned earlier. He was not sure how he would react in such a situation.

The pink haired girl beside him had half a mind to face palm at that moment, however, she knew that Naruto was never one to lie about such a matter. As much as she was relieved that he had not been aware of the looks he had been garnering, there was one thing that he had said that began to bother Sakura mentally. She drew back from him to allow him his personal space, and then said to him again," Heeh, I see, so you think she's pretty then?" Sakura of course was referring to Yoshiko, and gladly, the blonde girl was still engrossed in conversation with her cute little apprentice. She was not paying attention to what Sakura and her teammate were talking about, much to Sakura's delight. Still, Sakura could not quite get out of her mind the fact that Naruto had referred to another girl as pretty.

"Well, yeah, she is pretty," Naruto replied, unsure of where the pink haired girl was getting at with asking him something like that.

In all her years of being together with the blonde, he had never out rightly called a girl he had just met pretty. Most times, such as with Sanyu earlier, Naruto had to be coerced in order to comment about the general appearance of a person, but with Yoshiko, he had referred to her as pretty. The matter made Sakura feel slightly jealous. She remembered the time when Naruto had returned to the village after his training with Jiraiya, and she had been the first person to welcome him into the village. Blushing, as to how he was exuding more of an adult aura, she asked him sheepishly whether she looked more womanly. To her dismay however, Naruto commented that she had not changed at all. The matter made her hang her head forward in slight embarrassment.

Here he was again, complimenting another girl, and in Sakura's presence to boot! The pink haired girl was seized with the desire to punch him into the neighboring wall, but managed to restrain herself.

"You've never called me pretty before," Sakura muttered to herself with her face cast to the side, a childish pout on her features.

Naruto, who was looking at his teammate, saw her muttering something to herself. "Sakura-chan, did you say something just now?" He asked; genuinely worried about the girl he loved.

The Medical Ninja realized that Naruto had seen her mouth something to herself, so she immediately made to reassure him that everything was alright. "No! You're imagining things," she replied almost immediately, waving her hands in the space before her to reassure him that she had did no such thing. Haruno Sakura was a terrible actor. However, Naruto did not realize this, deciding to place his trust in the girl's words. Relieved, and taking this as another chance to tease her teammate, Sakura said to the blonde boy," You know if you're lucky you might be able to get a girlfriend in this village. They all look like really good girls."

Unknowingly, to Sakura this time, the two girls ahead of them had definitely gotten wind of the words that she had said at that moment. Sanyu's eyebrows widened in surprise, and Yoshiko simply shot a puzzled look to her equally befuddled apprentice. Then, as if reading each other's minds at that precise moment, the two realized what meaning Sakura's words carried. To their sheer luck and advantage, Naruto was not dating the pink-haired girl beside him, no matter how close he seemed to her. Originally, there seemed to be little to no hope of winning him over, courtesy of Haruno Sakura, but with her statement just then, the two girls realized that there was still hope. They had just received a green light, and planned to make full use of the chance they had received.

Naruto looked to his side in embarrassment, and this time Sakura knew she had managed to unnerve him. She chuckled to herself in amusement to Naruto's cute reaction. The blonde man then rubbed the top of his head, his face still slightly flushed, and said in an albeit lower tone, just enough for Sakura to hear, "I'm not…really interested in having a girlfriend at the moment."

Sakura, who was looking to her teammate gleefully with her hands behind her back and the upper half of her body slightly bent forward, was surprised by what he just said. She thought she had misheard him, and her heart rate erratically increased for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that day.

"Naruto, what do you-"

"We're here," Yoshiko said, her and her apprentice's face turned towards Naruto and his teammate, as a signal that they had reached their destination.

**A/N: **To be continued in next chapter, 'Festivities.'


	8. Festivities

**Chapter 8**

The first thing that caught Naruto's and Sakura's attention once they had been informed by Yoshiko that they had arrived at their destination was the huge banner that had been attached in the midst of two tall trees that marked the entrance. The banner itself, a brilliant shade of snow white, had been written in a contrastingly scarlet color, "Welcome, Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura." For added effect, the words themselves were written in capital letters, an action intended to make the visitors feel more welcome than they already were feeling in the Kunoichi village.

Upon seeing this banner, Naruto opened his mouth wide aghast, clearly impressed by the gesture of welcome. Placing one hand over his eyes in order to protect himself from the lingering rays of light that were still in the air courtesy of the setting sun, he arched his head slightly backwards in order to see the welcoming banner in all its glory. His eyes stayed upon the banner for an extended amount of time, his heart filling with warmth as he finally realized the surprise that Shizuka had prepared for him. Of course, he felt as if it was not necessary to go to such extremes when they were simply visitors in his another village, but then again, he was known about the matter earlier, then it wouldn't really count as much of a surprise. He felt like chuckling at this realization, whilst still feeling a great rush of affection in his chest for the dark haired girl who had made all this possible.

Sakura, on the other hand, having gotten over the initial surprise she had felt herself upon seeing the banner on which their names had been etched, focused her eyes on what lay ahead of her and her teammate. What she saw there was definitely catchier than the fancy banner. The entire field had been decorated into all sorts of colors, to offer both her and her teammate a warm welcome into the village. Trees that bore flowers of purple and pink had been planted into the ground, and they were shedding leaves, making for a beautiful display of nature's work. Her eyes drifted across the field, taking note of each thing she saw with awe and an increasing sense of surprise. There were food stands erected at a number of places underneath the trees themselves, and the aroma of the meals that were being prepared wafted into the air around, causing the pink haired girl to feel a little hungry. Drinks were also in plenty, as she spotted a table where bottles the same color as the banner had been placed on and Sakura immediately surmised that the bottles held sake. After all, she had seen a lot of those in her Master's office back in Konoha. She wondered just how far the village had gone in preparing such a feast for her and Naruto, as her eyes fell upon stands after stands that continued to please her. Clearly, this hospitality was like none she had ever experienced before, much less even in Konoha.

"Well," Sanyu spoke up, after making sure that Naruto and Sakura had both gotten their fill of eye candy upon seeing all that lay in the park, "this is the surprise that Shizuka-sama had prepared for you guys immediately she got news of your arrival at the front gates." When she saw Naruto's cerulean eyes shining with glee at the park and all the beauties it held, she had to hold back a chuckle. She had of course expected him to act this way before they had reached this area, but his reaction just now reminded her of how she was as a girl and how she would react whenever she would attend the village festivals. It was quite a nostalgic feeling, but knowing that they could not spend the rest of the evening dilly-dallying at the entrance to the park, she made to move one step forward, placing one foot past the banner.

Immediately she took a few steps inside the place, however, two girls appeared before her and the three people who were still in her company. The girls seemed to be the same age as her, something that Sakura noted keenly, but her first thought told her that these girls were here to usher them into the place. They were clad in kimonos similar to the one Sanyu was in, but theirs were of much duller colors than the vibrant one Sanyu was in, sporting the same shade of color as Sakura's hair. Beside her, her blonde teammate had similar thoughts course through his mind as he thought that the duo of girls were there to direct them to the various places inside the park, bearing in mind that the two Konoha shinobi were new in the village and if attention was not paid they would wind up getting lost. Additionally, the aroma that had wafted in the air moments prior had lingered on Naruto's nostrils, causing him to feel an ever increasing hunger in his gut. It couldn't really be helped; ever since he and Sakura had left Konoha to set out for this kunoichi village, they had not gotten a bite along the way, so Naruto realized just how ravenously hungry he was getting. He was not sure if he would be able to go a few minutes longer without a bite.

To the quartet's surprise, however, one of the two girls lurched forward, grabbing Sanyu's hand, which still stood at the forefront of the group. The auburn haired girl was immediately yanked away from the other three, catching Naruto and Sakura completely by surprise. As the stranger girl tugged at her arm to the girl's frail protests, the trio heard the girl speak up for the first time ever since she had shown up before them," Where have you been?! We've been looking all over for you so that you could help with the rest of the preparations!" The stranger girl protested, addressing the auburn haired girl whose hand she still had in her slightly firm grip. The girl was one of Sanyu's friends in the village. Sanyu, momentarily halting in her resistance, felt a tad bit embarrassed as she had forgotten that she had been instructed upon getting Naruto and Sakura to the park that she was supposed to go and help the other girls of her age group in setting up whatever else needed to be prepared for the party. She was dismayed at being robbed the chance to spend a bit more time with Naruto, but she knew that even if she had been promoted to a fully-fledged shinobi a few months back, she still had her own share of duties that she needed to perform to the village. She allowed her hand to relax as she was guided forward by her friend.

Sanyu's friend, realizing that her friend had fallen oddly silent ever since she had reminded her of her duties earlier, turned her face to look upon her with one if her eyes. Noticing the slight look of dismay that was on Sanyu's face, she huffed a little then addressed her friend once more," You know the earlier we get through with this the more time you will have to spend with your new boyfriend. Don't look so down over it," she told her in an assertive tone. Funny enough, however, Sakura, Naruto and Yoshiko had gotten wind of what Sanyu had just been told, the statement eliciting an arched eyebrow from the blonde woman. Sanyu, startled as the realization of what she had been told finally sunk in, looked at her friend in protest, one of her cheeks puffed in slight irritation. "He's not my boyfriend…well not yet anyway! The auburn haired girl protested to her friend.

This statement, worded clearly enough for Sakura and Naruto to hear clearly, caused the pink haired girl to simply exhale in exasperation this time. Ever since she had arrived at the village of Kunoichi, she realized that she had been so on edge about all the girls that neared Naruto, when perhaps she didn't have to worry so much in the first place. She had realized by that point, that a good number of the women in the village all had their eyes on Naruto, intending to per chance win him over, so if she reacted each and every time one of them made a move on her blonde teammate, she would be too tired to enjoy the party that had been prepared for them. Yes, Sakura decided, resolve growing in her heart, for now all she would do was relax her nerves and not allow she to worry so much over Naruto. Besides, she trusted that he knew what to do in such situations, so she was sure things would not go awry with him and the other kunoichi.

As the auburn haired girl moved farther and farther away from Naruto and his group, she managed to turn her head for one last look at the blonde ninja. Flashing a small smile at him, she voiced to him, in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone in the close vicinity, although they chose not to pay it much heed, being occupied with the final touches to the party themselves, "I'll see you later, Naruto! Make sure you have lots and lots of fun tonight!" She had placed one mouth over her mouth to make sure that he heard her loud and clear, and to her increased pleasure, she saw him wave at her enthusiastically, mirroring a smile to her as well, "Yeah, you too! Work hard!" Naruto voiced back at the auburn haired girl, and at this reply she walked on with her two comrades, their duties awaiting them in the grounds.

Sakura's earlier resolve, however, was going to be put to the test sooner than the pink haired girl thought. She would soon come to realize that such things were easier said than done. Once the blonde girl who was still in their company took note that Sanyu had left her with Naruto, she immediately moved to take action, taking the leeway that had been unintentionally created for her. She placed herself next to the blonde man, and latched her arm onto his, making physical contact with him for the first time ever since she had met him on that street earlier. Naruto, slightly taken aback by her sudden gesture, looked at her curiously, and saw an innocent smile on her face as she looked at him with her bright yellow eyes. Well, he thought, it was probably nothing worth pondering over. He allowed himself to relax under her hold, and when she began proceeding forward walking further into the field, he fell into step beside her, his earlier sense of awkwardness disappearing. Unknown to him, however, once Sakura had seen what the blonde girl had done, a flash of anger crossed her eyes, but she told herself to calm down and remember what she had resolved on doing earlier. It proved hard at first, witnessing how close Naruto was with the girl, but after a few huffs of air, she realized that she had calmed her nerves. Soon after, she followed silently behind the two, allowing herself to take in the pleasantries she had not seen upon entering this field.

As the blonde woman could feel the warmth from Naruto's arm seeping into her much slender one, she felt herself smiling inwardly over how lucky she had gotten. Still confident over her status as the most beautiful woman in the village, she felt a certain sense of pride that allowed her to place herself over all the other kunoichi in the village. As befitting her status, she deemed it fitting that someone as special as her ought to walk beside someone with a title as fancy as Naruto. She was the queen of Nadeshiko village, and Naruto, being the top of the Shinobi World after his heroic acts in the war, was somewhat as king, so she thought it right that the two walk hand in hand to the party. A small part of her wished that such an image would draw the attention of everyone in the village, a wish that was granted mere seconds into her walk with Naruto.

The eyes of the girls in the area soon shifted from whatever they were preoccupied with, and they all fell upon the duo of blondes who were in their midst. Naruto of course, was none the wiser over the slowly growing attention he and his partner were garnering as they walked through the place, his eyes shifting from food stand to food stand, wondering where he was going to start filling his empty stomach from. Behind the two, however, Sakura had also grown self conscious over all the attention focused on the people ahead of her, but it was then that she noticed something odd regarding the people who now surrounded them. She did not know why she had not realized it earlier, but now that she looked around, she noticed that most of the people in this area were all girls, roughly her age, give or take a few years for some of them. The street they had been on once they had exited Shizuka's office had been populated by mostly middle-aged women, who seemed to be in their 20s or 30s, a few teenagers thrown into the mix. Things now seemed to make more sense for the pink haired girl, as she came to the conclusion that most of the village's younger population had been all gathered to prepare this festival, eagerly looking forward to surprising the two guests in their midst. However, she concluded, with a sinking feeling in her chest, that she probably would not have a chance to converse with Naruto that evening, as most of the girls were surely guaranteed to be fighting over his attention.

The group of three walked on in silence for a few more minutes, Yoshiko bathing in all the attention and the envy that came her way, before she stopped and lightly tugged on Naruto's elbow for him to stop as well. She finally let go of his shoulder, feeling more pleased than dismayed at this, before quickly raising her toes slightly to whisper into his ear," Let's do this again next time." The slight breeze that followed her words sent a ticklish feeling to Naruto's ear, bringing him out of the half-focused state he was in and causing him to hastily respond to her with a nod. He had not caught on to all she had said, unknown to her, but his response was still enough to cause her to erupt in a smile, spasms of joy welling up in her. Without any further word from her, she broke away from Naruto and Sakura, walking towards a group of kunoichi who she was well acquainted with.

Once she had broken away from Naruto's company though, a swarm of girls who seemed to have been waiting for their chance to talk to the hero immediately appeared in front of him, surrounding him in all directions as each of them talked at the same time, trying to catch the attention of the blue eyed man. Yoshiko had half expected this, and had an uncanny feeling in her chest that the reason why Naruto had not been swarmed by the girls yet was because of how they viewed the blonde girl in awe. She walked on towards the group of her friends that were in conversation at one of the food stands, a smirk slowly gracing her face as she surmised that she was already one step ahead of all the other women who had the same intentions regarding Naruto. Since she had already made her move, a mighty bold one if she had to say so herself, she was a step ahead of all the other girls, so it would be a while before she made her move on the blonde again. Her victory was already set in stone.

Sakura seemingly shared the same expectations as Yoshiko, regarding the horde of girls that seemed to appear in a flash once the blonde's overbearing presence had left Naruto's side. She watched idly behind him as girl after girl struggled to talk to the hero, some of them smiling in bliss after he uttered a greeting to them, and a handful of others surprisingly asking for his autograph, something that she had never been witness to before. As she watched Naruto growing increasingly nervous with each new face that popped up in front of him, she remembered nostalgically that it was the same scene that had been present once he had returned from his defeat of Pain and the villagers all had him engaged in conversation. It was quite an amusing sight to replay, she thought, as she moved away from him and took a seat next to one of the food stands. The sun had long been engulfed in the horizon, and lanterns had already been lit at set areas of the park. Realizing that she had forgotten her hunger due to all that had happened, her stomach growling with a small noise, she decided to indulge herself in some of the food that had been prepared as she watched the comedic antics that were happening between her teammate and the village folks.

As she watched Naruto grow increasingly nervous under all the attention he had been subjugated towards, Sakura remembered that Naruto was never really one that was good with crowds, especially with people that he had just met. With his friends in Konoha, of course it was a different thing, since he had grown up around them ever since he was a kid, but this time it was entirely different. The crowd of women never seemed as if it was going to dwindle by even one person, growing larger and larger by the minute, similar to the small beads of perspiration that had broken over Naruto's face. He was not sure if he was going to survive through the night being bombarded left, right and centre by the never ending queries regarding things around him.

Luckily for Naruto however, and as a development that came as a surprise to Sakura, a lone girl in the crowd brought forth a plate towards her blonde teammate, beckoning him shyly to partake of its contents. Naruto eyed the plate suspiciously for a few moments, seeing a dish that he had never laid his eyes on in Konoha, before hesitatingly reaching out for the chopsticks that lay next to the dish and inhaling it in one gulp. He chewed on the food for a few minutes, his eyes darting from side to side as he tried to grasp a taste on the food he had been presented with. An eerie silence enveloped the air around him and the girls surrounding him, as they unknowingly waited his judgment on what was one of their village's dishes. Naruto swallowed, and a smile etched upon his face to the girl that had presented him with the dish, and he flashed her thumbs up while telling her that her food was tantalizing.

At this tender show of appreciation, however, it seemed the floodgates had opened upon the crowd of kunoichi. They soon rushed off in different directions, each of them heading to one of the numerous food stands in the vicinity as they had finally found something that pleased their esteemed guest. Naruto simply stood in confusion, blinking twice as he tried to understand what had just happened, and just as he prepared himself to take one step forward and walk around the park farther in order to witness more of it, the girls soon returned. It seemed only a second ago that they had broken away from him empty handed, but this time, each of them held a plate in their hands, and none of the plates held the same content. It seemed to Sakura as if Naruto had just been presented with all the food that was dined upon in this village, so to the girls he would be some form of taste-tester for them. She watched closely as Naruto was presented with a different dish by each girl that appeared before him, his face switching between different expressions each time he emptied the plate's contents to his stomachs.

Surprisingly, a few of the girls were thoughtful enough to carry the white bottles that she had witnessed upon her entry to the park, and a nagging feeling in Sakura's chest told her that each of the bottles contained a different flavor of sake. The girls holding these bottles also had their chances to appear before Naruto, intending to please him as much as the girls that had brought him all forms of delicacies. At first she was worried regarding Naruto's intake of alcohol, but remembering that he had come of legal drinking age after the war, allowed herself to relax as she also partook of the food that had been prepared in the food stall before her. The thoughts she had banished earlier regarding keeping Naruto away from these women resurfaced momentarily in her mind, but going through them again, she realized that it was probably not going to be worth it. She surmised that even if by some sort of miracle she managed to wrench Naruto away from the overly eager girls, such a solution would only be temporary, since they were supposed to be in the village for a week. The girls were still going to get plenty more chances to talk to Naruto, meaning her efforts would be rendered meaningless shortly afterwards.

Additionally, her mind told her that doing something like that would only serve to antagonize the residents of the village; something that she already knew would not be in her favor so early into their vacation. The villagers had their sights on the same man as she had for a while now, so her small objections were extremely plausible. Remembering her time as a kid, when she had competed with her best friend over the affection of one raven haired Uchiha, she vowed to herself not to ever allow such an incident to occur again. Her cheeks flushed slightly as she remembered just how uncouth she had acted back then in the hopes of getting the affections of someone who had never as much as spared her a second of his time, and she vowed to herself that she would never let anything that ridiculous take over her time ever again. Her friendship with Yamanaka Ino had of course been repaired over the course of time, the two even growing more comfortable around each other to use nicknames over each other, but the scars over what had torn apart their friendship in the first place still lingered. It would take a while for them to cover completely, Sakura thought; her stomach gradually filling up with what she was partaking. She had to admit that the food in Nadeshiko would certainly put any of the cooks in Konoha to shame, wondering just how on earth they prepared such mouth watering dishes.

While the pink haired girl was preoccupied in her thoughts, a certain green haired woman approached her, taking up a seat beside her. "What, all these girls proved too much for you to handle?" She said, making herself comfortable next to the pink haired girl and calling for her attention. Sakura, brought out of her momentary daze, darted her eyes to the green haired girl, vividly remembering her as the girl who she had conversed with at the village gates a few hours back. Honoka, now assured that she had managed to catch Sakura's attention, placed a plate full of almonds next to the pink haired girl, smiling softly at her and silently offering her the plate of fruit. Sakura, wondering what to make of the green haired girl since the two had not exactly gotten off on the right foot when they first talked, hesitantly reached out her hand to take one of the almonds, and plopped it in her mouth. It melted on her tongue, filling her mouth with sweetness, and she felt her doubts regarding the green haired girl's intentions slowly ebbing away. Once she had swallowed the fruit and reached out her hand for another one, she opened her mouth to speak to the green haired girl for the first time that evening, chuckling a little as she had not expected to run into the girl so soon, "Not really, besides Naruto can talk to any girl he wants to talk to besides me. It's really not something for me to fret over," the pink haired girl stated matter-of-factly, a confident look in her eyes as she looked into Honoka's lime-green eyes.

Honoka, taking one of the almonds herself, looked at Sakura silently for a while as she studied the girl's facial expression, paying attention to what she had just said then. Sakura herself had not seemed to realize the implications of what she had said, something Honoka noted with a growing smirk on her face. "You know," she said, placing one of the sweet fruits in her mouth, "you just sounded like his girlfriend with what you just said," she stated slyly, allowing the almond to travel down her throat. At this statement, however, Sakura nearly choked on the fruit that was in her mouth, looking back at Honoka in disbelief. It was just then that she realized the implications of what she had told Honoka earlier, her cheeks growing slightly beet red at the slight embarrassment she felt. The green haired girl was not quite done with Sakura yet, opening her mouth to conclude on what she had further realized then, "And with that just now, I have the complete answer to the question I asked you at the gate. Now was that too hard?" She said a slight playful tone in her voice as she eyes Sakura curiously.

Sakura, having managed to recompose herself and regained the usual color of her cheeks, cleared her throat momentarily as she searched for a way to retaliate at the girl. Finding none, with slight disappointment, she decided to return the ball to Honoka's court, realizing that any retaliation she used would probably be used against her, since the girl whose company she currently shared could read her lie a book. "What about you?" She started, her confidence slightly waning, but managing to regain control of her shaky voice," Why aren't you joining in their company? It could be your chance to win over the hero of the Shinobi World," Sakura stated, as she folded her hands on her chest, inwardly congratulating herself over finding something she was sure Honoka would not be able to turn against her.

To her slight surprise, however, the green haired girl fell silent for a few minutes, her eyes focused on Naruto, who was still taking in all the foods that had been placed before him, albeit at a much slower rate than he had been earlier, before she finally opened her mouth to reply to Sakura, her face in an oddly serious expression," Hmph, well I have to admit it is a really tempting offer, but with stuff like this the right thing to do is bide your time and wait patiently for things to unfold. You could also borrow a leaf from that," she said, looking at Sakura from the side of her face as her attention was still focused on Naruto. Sakura widened her eyebrows in surprise, never expecting to hear such a reply for someone who seemed to ooze with confidence. It was a stark contrast from the slight arrogance that Yoshiko seemed to possess, but somehow she had thought for a while now that Honoka was the kind of girl who would plunge head first for anything she wanted. She had just realized that she had never been more mistaken in her first impressions of someone. The girl seated beside her seemed to be an enigma of a character, more so with her last statement, but oddly enough, Sakura found herself not minding the company of the green-head. Perhaps spending the rest of the evening engaged in idle chatter with the woman would not be such a bad prospect, the pink haired kunoichi thought, closing her eyes momentarily before finally realizing what she would talk about with Honoka.

Naruto, who was gradually getting fuller and fuller with each dish presented before him, realized that it would be a while before he would be unable to eat anymore. He was extremely grateful that the hunger that he had been feeling earlier was now a matter of the past, but now he was unsure just how he would tell the girls politely that he had already eaten to his fill. He had already reached his limit in drinking, to the displeasure of a few girls, and he was unsure how the obviously larger number of food girls (he had opted to refer to them that way since he could not remember any of the names they had told him) would react once he told them that he could not eat anymore would react. As he took in what was his second last plate for the day, fearing that he was reaching his limit earlier than he had expected. To his relief however, all the girls immediately shifted their attention away from him, focusing on the stage that was being set a few meters away from them. Naruto wondered how come he had not caught on to such a minuscule detail earlier. All around him, he noticed the girls were all momentarily dazed, their hands frozen on their plates and their eyes shining in eagerness. Naruto looked at each of them in confusion, wondering what they were waiting for with much anticipation, before he saw someone walking towards the stage from the opposite side, accompanied by screams and shrieks from the audience.

The woman herself was clad in a snow white kimono, which started from her shoulders, exposing a little of her milky chest and a sizeable amount of cleavage that made Sakura feel slightly mortified, and the kimono fell beautifully till her legs. It parted in two just above her knees, the two segments continually separating from each other giving everyone present a luscious view of her equally milky legs that seemed to be quite the right size. Her hair was jet black, tied up into a bun that was completed with a golden pin that ran through the back of her hair. She had equally dark eyes, and there was a faint shade of red lipstick on her supple lips, and an equally faint shade of the same color upon her rosy cheeks. She was the most refined dancer in Nadeshiko, her name was Mahra.

Her dance was said to entrance anyone who bore witness to it, of course even outside the walls of the village. As she walked gracefully to the stage that had been set before her so that she could entertain the villagers and their honored guests with a dance to add to the festive mood that had seized the air, she shifted her eyes to her side, and momentarily captured the gaze of the blue eyed man who was in the midst of all the villagers. Surprise washed over her, and she momentarily threatened to stop to get a better glimpse of the blonde man, but realizing that she was under the watch of numerous eyes, pressed on until she reached her stage. She had been so preoccupied with preparing for the night's entertainment that she had failed to remember on what account the feast was being held. The news of course had reached her ears that Uzumaki Naruto was in the village, but she had not dwelled on it, as she deemed him a man beneath her stature. However, bearing witness to him now, taking account of the mop of blonde hair on his head that shared the same color as the sun, and his cerulean eyes that bore the same color as the deep blue sea, she realized that she might have been a bit too hasty in her judgment of him. Taking a small bow in front of the crowd that she had unwittingly drawn in, although it was a spectacle that she had witnessed numerous times before, she resolved silently in her heart to dance the best she could that night. Perhaps this night would not be as dull as all the nights that had come and gone in the village, that she had been witness to but had never managed to raise her spirits as they had been raised today.

Behind her, two performers took their places with their instruments ready, garbed in what seemed to be the traditional wear of the village. A few seconds later, the air in the park was grabbed by a sweet sensation that would send even crying babies to sleep. A beautiful melody rung in the air, and with it accompanied the nimble movements of the dancer, moving as soundlessly as water and her body seeming as if it swayed with the slight breeze that was present in the air. Beneath her, the girls who had waited eagerly to witness her breath taking dance were not disappointed by what they lay witness to. This time, however, it seemed as if her dance sparked a fire within them, something that told the older ones among them that she was showing them her best colors that night. With each movement she made, 'Ooohs,' and 'Aaahs' followed after her, none of the crowd threatening to break their gaze away from the woman. As the dancer on stage moved on the platform that was now hers, her eyes shifted from corner to corner of the crowd, however, they lingered a few seconds longer upon the blue eyes that were in the middle of the crowd, unknown to everyone who surrounded her. Occasionally, she would send a wink or two at him, but the women around him all thought those gestures belonged to them, taken in body, heart and soul by the dark haired woman's dance. Naruto, on the other hand, had the uncanny feeling that those subtle gestures were all sent his way, although he did not have the faintest idea why.

The blonde man however, realized that he could not have asked for a better chance to break away from the crowd he was currently swallowed in than the one that was currently presented before him. He felt slightly grateful to the mysterious dark haired woman, making a mental note to thank her later if he ran into her on one of his trips in the village. Not that he minded the company of the girls around him; on the contrary, he loved how hospitable they had been to him ever since the festivities had began, but he wanted to do a little exploring of his own for a while, and he knew that such a suggestion would be unheard of to the girls. He still had no idea how he would be able to decline their kindness politely, as he made his way through the crowd looking for a way through the back. He noted silently the stark difference that existed between the kunoichi of this village and the kunoichi of his home village. The ones in Nadeshiko seemed a tad more direct than the ones he was used to in Konoha, something he was not sure what to make of as it pleased him and slightly unnerved him at the same time.

Once he had broken away from the crowd he had been in and found himself finally able to stretch his arms and legs for the first time in what seemed a millennium, he began looking around for a familiar face that he would be able to hang out with for a while. The first person that had come to mind was his teammate, a bit embarrassed that he had forgotten about her for a while now. His eyes shifted from area to area of the park, looking for any sign of pink hair, but the park was so full that he could barely make out any of the people in it. Dismayed, he folded his hands on his chest, a small pout on his face as he tried pondering over his next course of action.

A dark haired girl, who possessed the same color of eyes as his teammate, popped up in his mind and he wondered how come she had slipped from his mind completely. She was the primary reason that he and Sakura were within the village, which she also served as leader of, so it did not make sense why he had not caught any sign of Shizuka all throughout this celebration. The thought made him a little sad, since the party was held thanks to her efforts, so he wanted to thank her for showing them a good time on their first night in the village. He walked through the park, his eyes darting from food stall to food stall as he looked for any sign of Sakura or Shizuka, before his eyes soon settled on a red shade of hair that was seated under one of the pink flowered trees. While his mind had been constantly racing all day with a multitude of thoughts, he realized that he would never forget such a lovely shade of red so soon after encountering her at the gate.

Akako was currently seated fewer than one of the trees, deeper into the park, seemingly enjoying the solitude she was currently in. Once Naruto had been aware of where she was seating, a slight sense of coldness passed through his body, realizing that he still did not feel that comfortable around the red haired guard. However, he realized that he did not exactly have much of a choice at the moment, since he could not spot any familiar faces around. Sanyu and Yoshiko seemed to have disappeared off somewhere, or perhaps they were in the midst of the crows that feasted upon the dancer. He did not have much choice at the moment, choosing to walk closer and closer to the red eyed girl, who had a bottle of sake at one side, the other side taken by the spear that she had first prodded Naruto with on their first meeting. Naruto found himself what on earth would possess someone to cause them to bring a spear to a party, but then again he remembered vividly that upon his first meeting with a certain blonde beauty, she had a sword strapped to her back. She had not opted to drop the sword anywhere en route to the festival ground, so maybe Yoshiko still had her weapon in hand. The thought calmed him down as he was finally a stone's throw away from Akako.

The red haired girl, noticing that someone was drawing nearer and nearer to her, opened her eyes slowly and they came to rest upon Naruto's blue ones. Her hand momentarily moved to the spear that lay at her side before she figured out who it was that approached, but upon realizing it was the boy from that morning, she allowed herself to relax. Naruto, taking this as a sign that he was welcome to share in Akako's company, slowly placed himself on the ground next to the red haired woman, carefully placing her sake jar on his thigh as he did not want to know what would happen if he accidentally broke it. He had already seen enough of Tsunade's tantrums when she did not find any of the sake bottles she stashed so carefully in her wardrobe. The two sat in silence, Akako still keeping her eyes closed, before she broke the ice that had fallen in place between her and Naruto.

"Are you lost?" She asked him, and Naruto was surprised to see that her eyes were open again and they were peering at him curiously. He shifted a little uncomfortably under her stare, rubbing the back of his head nervously as he wondered how he would answer that. A nervous chuckle escaped his lips as he tried to recompose himself, then he said, trying to express confidence," In a matter of speaking, yes." His reply had come out a bit more directly than he had intended, something that surprised him but made him glad since he had stopped shifting nervously.

Akako eyed him silently for a few minutes, before slowly raising one of her fingers and pointing in a direction behind Naruto. Naruto wondered why she was doing that, but he nonetheless looked in the said direction, his body slowly arching backwards when his eyes rested upon a blotch of pink hair. He gasped in surprise, wondering why he had not chosen to look in that direction earlier. "If you're looking for your teammate, she's over there with Honoka," Akako stated bluntly, her eyes back to their usual closed manner. Naruto's gaze lingered a while longer in the direction that she had pointed at, taking note of the manner in which Sakura occasionally laughed in her conversation with the green haired girl. He smiled softly, realizing that she seemed perfectly content in the company she was in, so there was no need for him to butt in and steal away her chance at making her first friend in the Maiden Village. Pleased, he returned to his usual posture, looking at the boisterous crowd before him that seemed to grow bigger and bigger with each passing minute.

Akako caught note of this seemingly unusual behavior, so she decided to ask him," You're not going to go and join her?" She asked her eyes focused in him once more. Naruto, realizing just how comfortable he was feeling currently, closed his eyes momentarily, then replied in a much calmer voice," Naah, she looks like she's having fun with her friend. There's no need for me to do anything. "The red haired woman titled her head slightly at his response, finding it unbecoming from someone like the blonde, but nonetheless decided to give the matter a rest, mumbling to herself softly," I see." Naruto then spoke up again, catching the red haired woman by surprise for the first time that evening," Besides, you seem like an interesting person yourself, so spending time with you for a while might not be a bad idea!" In his excitement at having finally dissolved the nervousness he had been feeling regarding the red haired woman, Naruto failed to notice that for a split second, her cheeks had turned a fainter shade of color than her hair. Akako was not exactly used to receiving off-handed comments about her personality, or anything about her in general, placing more emphasis in her training more than anything, so she did not know what how she was supposed to react in such a situation.

The blonde man, oblivious to how he had flustered the girl beside him, pressured on with the conversation, still in the uppity mood he had been in for a while now," Why aren't you joining in with the others? I think you'll have fun if you join in with them." It was more a query than anything, but surprising herself as much as him, the red haired girl did not pause before answering this time," I don't especially like gatherings like this one." Naruto looked at her curiously, but she continued, answering the question that had nearly rolled out of his mouth next," I'm only here because Honoka asked me to accompany here. Plus the guard at the gate changes at night so I couldn't turn her down," she added on, her eyes focused on the crowd ahead of her. All of a sudden, she found it a bit difficult to look into Naruto's eyes, surprising herself further, as she had not found it difficult to do so on the previous occasion the two had talked. The blonde man let out a stifled sound, before an idea popped up in his mind and he turned on the red haired woman again, feeling joyous that he had found one who seemed to be in the same moods as him at that moment, "What a coincidence. I'm not feeling so social at the moment, mind if I sit next to you for a while?" He asked her, and she could feel his blue eyes peering at her closely as he unknowingly closed the distance between them. The girl in question brusquely nodded at his question, causing him to let out a shriek of joy as he pumped his fist into the air.

To his dismay, however, as soon as he had braced himself for a conversation with the girl who he had suddenly found a whole load of interesting, there was a slight breeze behind him, and Akako turned her head slightly to catch wind of whoever had just appeared behind her and Naruto. Naruto, thinking that it was just a stray wind, continued peering at the red haired girl, before a voice suddenly spoke up behind him,"Uzumaki Naruto-kun, it's a pleasure to meet you once again." Startled, Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin, but he turned his head to meet the source of the voice. He was surprised to discover that the voice came from someone familiar, remembering that the woman was there the first time he had met Shizuka. Her head was lowered slightly, giving Naruto a glimpse of her spiky brown hair, as she was on one knee, her eyes closed in a manner of respect towards the man. Feeling uncomfortable by a gesture which he felt did not fit him, Naruto moved to stop the girl," No, no, it's okay Tokiwa-san! You don't need to act so formal with me," he started, a bit fidgety as he was not used to being addressed with such formality, especially from someone that he was already acquainted with. The older woman looked slightly upwards, focusing her black orbs on Naruto's blue ones, momentarily looking beside him to take note of the woman in his company. Naruto, pleasantly surprised to see the older woman again, found himself wondering why she had shown up that late, much less without Shizuka, who seemed to always be in her company. She spoke again, disclosing the reason that she had come to the gathering, and clearing Naruto's doubts," Shizuka-sama has sent me here to come get you and show you where you will be taking up residence while staying in our village."

Naruto's batted an eyebrow, looking at the dark eyed woman for a while, before realizing that perhaps lingering longer at the party would not be in his best interests. After all, he was not sure what kind of a schedule he would have in this foreign place, and did not want to impose upon his hosts so much. Getting up softly from his position on the grass, he dusted himself a bit before moving forward to take his place next to the brown haired woman. As he moved forward though, he felt a tug at his jacket, and looked down to find Akako tugging at him with one hand. Curiously, he looked at the red haired girl, who proceeded to fish out something from the grass lying beside her, and seconds later her hand came out with a package that was in the shape of a weapon. Or at least Naruto thought it was. He stretched out his hand slowly and took the package, eyeing it curiously and getting a feel of it while it rested under his grasp. He brought it closer to his face, spinning it to look around, before asking the red haired girl," What is it?"

Akako, who kept her gaze on Naruto the whole time he had been looking at her package, released his jacket from her small grip and answered him," It's a welcome present. I thought it would make you feel more welcome here in our village." A warm feeling grew in Naruto's gut at her reply, and he smiled brightly at the girl, bringing his hand to the top of her head and patting her hair slightly. It felt soft. "Thank you, Akako." Before he was taken away via **Dance Step** by the older woman that had come to fetch him, he could swear that he had seen the faint outline of a smile on the usually stoic Akako. It was the first sign of happiness that he had seen on her, and somehow, it filled him with satisfaction, giving him a good feeling as he made away from the rest of the people in the festival.

_A few minutes later_

Naruto, who had just been shown the room he was to take residence in, found himself amazed at how splendid the place looked. It was no different from his house in Konoha, with a bed, a lamp and a bathroom plus a toilet, but somehow, it felt more….._grand. _There was much more space than he was used to living in, plus there was adequate ventilation owing to the windows that were in each room. The other rooms of the house, which included the kitchen, sitting room and dining room, were way bigger than his, and he could not help but smile at the affection he could feel placed into making this room. He decided that he was going to do the villagers a favor and take extra care of the room, something that he seldom did when he was in Konoha.

Once he was done looking around the house, he decided to take a long nap, while thinking of what he was going to do the next day. He placed Akako's package on the table next to his bed, deciding that he would unwrap it the following morning, and offer his thanks to the woman no matter what he found inside. He had placed himself atop his bed and was just about to call it a day, when he heard a knock on the door of his sitting room. Perplexed, he extricated himself from the bed and walked towards the door, wondering who on earth had decided to pay him a visit when it was that dark. It must have already been midnight, as the full moon was already sky high. As he slowly turned the door knob, his first thought was that it was his pink haired teammate, something that caused his heart to skip a beat. If it really was Sakura, then he was certain that this would be the perfect icing on the cake that had been that festival, something nice that would top off the long and strenuous day that he had.

Swinging the door open and being hit by a small gust of wind that sent his hair flowing backwards, he found himself looking into a green pair of orbs. However, they were not Sakura's.

"Shizuka?" The blonde man asked, surprised.

_A few minutes after that too_

Sakura was walking on the street that led to where she had been told Naruto was taking residence by Honoka. With each step she took, she felt herself getting dizzier and dizzier, her head growing lighter and her vision growing dangerously blurry. Somewhere along some lines in the party, Honoka had coerced her into taking a few gulps of the sake, insisting that it was prepared on account of Naruto and Sakura and if she refused to take it, it would be an insult to the hospitality of Nadeshiko. Sakura had finally given in, but had forgotten once crucial thing; she could not hold her bottle. A drinking session in the past with her Master that had been a result of a bet had made this crystal clear to her. She struggled to make herself walk straight, but a few steps later had her wobbling dangerously. She had already settled into her residence, courtesy of the green haired girl who was sort-of her friend, so all she needed now was to see Naruto and make sure that he was okay, wish him a good night then call it a day. However, with the pace she was walking with, she was not sure whether she would be able to make it to his house in one piece.

Finally reaching his front door, after what seemed an eternity of walking, she recomposed herself and prepared to knock on his door, thanking Kami that she had managed to shake off the worst of her hangover. Before she could place a hand on the door, however, she heard the mumbling of voices in the house, something that caught her completely by surprise. She realized that there was no way her teammate could be talking to himself, no matter how much of an idiot he was, coming to the conclusion that there was someone else in the room with him at that moment. She could not fathom what on earth someone would be doing at someone else's residence in the darkness of the night, when the only source of light originated from the lamps erected at certain positions of the street. At first, she had opted to leave and come back in the morning, but her curiosity got the better of her, making her want to find out who it was that had paid Naruto a late night visit. It was obviously a woman, the only male in the entire village at the moment was Naruto, and so Sakura noiselessly pressed her eye to a small hole that had been fitted into the door to allow whoever was inside to look at who had decided to pay them a visit.

The first thing she saw when she had pressed her eye to the hole was her blonde teammate, and he was standing opposite a dark haired woman. Sakura did not need to be told that the woman was Shizuka, she had taken note of the medium-sized hair that the woman sported when she was in her office earlier. Sakura wondered what had caused her to visit Naruto so late into the night, thinking to herself that if it was such an important matter it could wait a few more hours into the morning. The two seemed to be in some conversation, causing the increasing nervousness in Sakura to quell a bit, and she silently exhaled in relief, wondering what had caused her to get so riled up in the first place. Shizuka was Naruto's friend; so such a thing was perfectly normal, of course. However, what followed next could hardly be considered normal between people who referred to each other as friends.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. As Sakura was about to avert her gaze from the two conversing people, Shizuka stood on her toes, and planted a kiss on Naruto's lips, to Sakura's utter shock…..

**A/N: **I think this is the longest chapter of anything I have ever written in my life, I'm actually surprised myself since I didn't expect the chapter to be so lengthy. But well, all's well that ends well. In this chapter I've brought in a new face, plus older faces of girls who will obviously all play an important role in Sakura's and Naruto's stays at the kunoichi village? Some of them will also be part of the bet that was made by Shizuka and Tsunade in Chapter 6, so best remember their names and appearances. I hope I did a good job at introducing them and fleshing them out a bit more in preparation for their future appearances, and I hope you will come to like each of them, no matter how odd some of their personalities may be.

Thanks for all the reviews, follows and favorites! Hope you enjoy this chapter too!


	9. Naruto's Day, Part 1

**Chapter 9**

**Naruto's Day, Part 1**

_Half an hour before Sakura's arrival_

_Naruto was surprised to find the dark haired Village Leader standing at the entrance to his newly acquired room, but it was still a pleasant one nonetheless as he had not seen her ever since he had left her office earlier that day. _

"_I didn't see you at the party today. Were you busy?" He asked._

_She allowed herself into the blonde man's house, and Naruto stepped aside a little to allow the girl to enter. "A little, plus I wanted to see you in private," Shizuka responded, resting the small of her back on one of the tables present in Naruto's living room at that moment. She folded her arms at her chest as she regarded the man before her with her green orbs._

_Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, here I am now." He grinned at the girl, before lowering his arm to rest at his side. "What did you want to talk about?" He asked Shizuka._

"_First things first, Naruto," Shizuka responded in a matter of fact tone, before continuing," How was the party? Did you love it?"_

_Naruto had to ponder a little before answering the question. There was a slight tinge of red on his cheeks when he opened his mouth to respond this time, something that Shizuka did not miss. He looked to the side in an attempt to abate his embarrassment. "Hehe, well, okay if I was to be honest, it felt better than the ones in Konoha."_

_Shizuka's eyes widened in surprise, before a small smile slowly wormed its way onto her face. "I'm glad I was able to leave an impression then. So you had fun then?"_

_Naruto looked up into her eyes to respond this time. "Lots of it. Thank you, Shizuka."_

_She waved a hand to the side. "Please, it's the least I could do for our esteemed guests tonight." She paused a little, her eyes traversing the entirety of the room she was currently in. _

"_How do you like the house so far?"_

_Naruto mirrored her actions just then, albeit for a minute longer, before he responded," It's really lovely. Really, you didn't have to go through all the trouble; a simple inn would have done just fine too!" He paused for a moment, his arms crossed at his chest and his eyes closed in thought, as an idea spring up in his mind just then. "Is-"_

_The village head seemed to read his thoughts just then, for she raised a hand in front of her in a gesture to silence him. Naruto understood the hidden gesture, and Shizuka responded," You don't have to worry about Sakura, she's also received the same hospitality as you."_

_Naruto sighed in relief at that response, before smiling warmly at Shizuka in gratitude. "Thanks Shizuka, you know you're really a good person."_

_Shizuka said nothing in response to this, studying Naruto's face silently for a moment. She seemed to be trying to search for something there. Naruto felt the silence that had enveloped the room weighing on him awkwardly, and was about to break it by saying something, anything that would come to mind, but at that moment Shizuka surprised him by dropping a bombshell on him._

"_Say Naruto, what would you suggest to meeting me every night in the one week you have here, like now?" She inquired of the blonde man. Naruto looked at Shizuka awkwardly, his mouth slightly agape, as Shizuka's words hung limply in the air between them. Looking at the dark haired girl, Naruto could see the seriousness of her demeanor just then, which informed him that she was not joking with her request just then. He organized the jumbled thoughts in his mind just then before asking in kind._

"_Not that I have any problem with seeing you at night, of course, but why can't we just meet during the day? I mean that way we can have more time to hang out together, right?"_

_Surprisingly, the girl shook her head in denial of his question before responding in the serious tone that she had adopted earlier. It did not take long for Naruto to realize that this was the prime reason that she had come to see him that evening. _

"_You didn't see them?"_

_Naruto was confused. "Who?"_

_Shizuka had to resist the urge to face palm at that moment. Naruto wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, she had known for a long while, but there were times when this side of him would prove slightly vexing. Such as now. _

"_The way some of the girls acted in the celebration with you," she said, a bit exasperated that she had to spell this out for him. Her hands were on her waist, and one of her fingers was tapping against the table in a show of growing impatience. _

_Naruto realized the sudden change in mood of the dark haired woman and a drop of perspiration broke out on his forehead. He was not new to how much pain a woman's anger held, so he decided to tread carefully from that point onward. He laughed nervously. "Aha, yeah, that. It was kind of a new thing for me. I'm not used to such stuff."_

_With that response, the ire that was bubbling dangerously in Shizuka seemingly ebbed away. How could she remain angry at him when he had given her such an honest reply? Her hands fell limply to her sides from her waist, and she smiled fondly at the blonde man, while taking note of the fact that no matter how much attention Naruto received, especially after the events of the Fourth Shinobi World War, he would never adjust comfortably to it. He was just that kind of a person._

"_Well, you might have to deal with it. They all adore you. And since I'm not such a callous person as to prevent them from wanting to spend time with you, the only way that can happen is if I meet you at night."_

_The blonde man was slowly coming round to Shizuka's way of thinking, as the nervous look on his face was slowly receding. He was not fully convinced though, as he insisted once more," What about your work? I mean, you are the village head, is it really okay for you to come and see me when you're needed in the office?" Naruto had no aversions whatsoever to seeing the girl when the day was over, but then again, he wanted to be sure that he would not get in the way of anything she was supposed to be doing._

"_There isn't much work at night. I leave the office early. So how does it sound?" She asked an air of confidence in her response just then._

_Naruto closed his eyes once more in thought, clearly struggling with the answer in his mind, but this time he did not find any other qualms with Shizuka's suggestion. Nodding brusquely at her as he opened his eyes once more to look at the girl opposite him, he responded," Hmm, it might cut into my napping hours, but I guess I can spare an hour or two every night to hang out with you." He smiled at her at the end of his response, to which she responded in kind with a smile of her own._

_Shizuka extricated herself from the table she had been resting on earlier. "Great!" Her business was done and done, and in a manner that pleased her, so now she had a reason to look forward to each and every night for the next week. She paused momentarily, Naruto likewise, and for a while nothing could be heard in the room but a silence that seemed ready to burst any moment. Shizuka was the one who broke the silence this time as well," Well then, I'll leave you to get used to your new home. I'll see you later then?"_

_Naruto nodded, before suggesting," I can walk you back to your place."_

_Shizuka proceeded to take a step forward as she made for the door, but not before saying," I'll be fine." As she drew level with the place where Naruto was standing a few inches short of the door, she stopped in mid motion, surprising Naruto, before she turned to face him. Naruto looked at her confused, and she went on to stand on her toes, covering his ear with one hand before speaking to him softly, "I'll definitely win, okay?"_

_The feel of her breath on his ear sent a tingly feeling in Naruto at that moment, but before he could ask her what she meant by what she said, she was already swinging his door open. _

_Sakura_

The moment that Sakura had peeked through the gap in Naruto's door to see him kissing Shizuka, time seemed to have stopped for her. She stood rooted to the ground, and the tipsiness that she was feeling moments prior seemed to all have ebbed away, as all the blood in her body came rushing to her head. Her mouth was slightly parted, her mind reeling with all possible explanations why she had witnessed what had happened, but nothing in the world would have prepared her for what she had just witnessed.

Luckily enough, her wits were able to get back to her in time as the door swung open, and she was able to get out of the way in time before Shizuka bumped into her on the way out. But then again, from the moment her eyes came to rest on Shizuka's equally emerald orbs, Sakura had a feeling that there was something else here.

"Why did you use that genjutsu just now?" Sakura asked warily, and from the smug smile on Shizuka's face just then, she knew that she could not be more right. It had been fishy ever since she had seen the entire thing, as Naruto's facial expression did not make sense, at least for someone who she knew had not had his first proper kiss yet. Meaning that Shizuka had sensed Sakura nearing the door and had decided to cast that illusion, for whatever motives she had in mind.

The glum smile never left Shizuka's face as she rested one arm on the door, towering over Sakura from the lone step that separated the inside of Naruto's door from the outside. "It was just a greeting." There was a dark tone in Shizuka's reply just then, something that Sakura opted to overlook as she was not sure she wanted to start an argument with the dark haired woman there.

Shizuka did not seem to keen on lingering longer at the door and prolonging the exchange between her and Sakura, as she turned to the side and slowly began descending the short steps that led away from Naruto's home. Sakura sighed in relief, glad that her encounter with Sakura had not turned into something ugly, but the dark haired woman was not quite done yet. A few paces away from the final step, she stopped, and then glanced from the corner of her eye at Sakura. The pink haired girl's breath caught in her throat, and Shizuka spoke up. It was in a subdued tone, which only Sakura could hear.

"You've already had your chance with him."

With that, she was gone, leaving Sakura to pander over the meaning of her last words to her. She stood in front of Naruto's door for a few minutes longer, a slight breeze beating at her legs, but she did not feel it.

It took a while for her to finally catch on to Naruto calling out to her, as he now stood in front of her at the doorstep. His blue eyes framed her vision, and she nearly leaped backwards in surprise from their close proximity at the moment.

"Sakura-chan, are you okay? I didn't see you the whole evening! Where were you?" He proceeded to usher her inside his house with the wave of her hand. "Come in, we can talk inside."

The pink haired girl stood transfixed to the ground, despite Naruto's attempts to bring her out of her stupor. Shizuka's words still rung in her ears, and she felt them sink in several times over inside her. Naruto all of a sudden seemed distant to her, and she robotically looked upwards to find she looking into those cerulean orbs of his, that seemed to be brimming with worry for her at the moment. She said nothing for a moment, before finally opening her mouth to speak up her first words to him ever since they went their separate ways that evening.

"No, it's okay. I just came to say goodnight."

Naruto still had that worried gaze on her, and for a moment she wanted nothing but to wrap herself in those big strong arms of his, but she managed to restrain herself. With a bit of difficulty, she walked away from him, leaving him to stare only at her retreating form.

"Sakura-chan…." He called out to her weakly. Had something happened to her while he wasn't there? He felt his worry deepen.

She did not even look at him as she spoke up a second time. "I'll talk to you later. Goodnight.

With that, the pink haired girl retired to her quarters for the night, leaving in her wake a worried Naruto.

_The next day, morning_

_ Akako_

Akako was always an early bird, for as long as she could remember. Perhaps this could explain why as the first rays of the sun were making their way into the horizon, her eyes were already wide open. The red haired woman lay in her bed, still in her white night gown, her eyes fixed on the ceiling above her.

She turned slowly to her side, peering out of her window to look at the red glow that was cast over the land. The events from the previous night slowly replayed in her mind, and she raised her hand to blow away a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. The night had been all but dismal to the red haired girl.

Originally, it had not been in her plans to attend the festivities. After all, it had not been mandatory for every villager to be there. Akako had been planning to rest early in the evening in preparation for returning to her usual routine the following day. Her plans were all thwarted, however, when Sanyu had shown up before her and literally begged her to show up at the party, insisting that she would not regret it.

At first, the red haired girl was adamant on her initial decision not to attend the party, but when the auburn haired girl had not relented in her persuasion of the girl to come, even promising that she would be with her the entire event so that she would not experience an ounce of boredom, Akako was swayed.

Well, things went well enough on that account. At some point of the event, when Sanyu had been dragged away by her age mates to assist with the remaining preparations for the occasion, she seemingly disappeared into the vast horde of people that were already swarming into the area. This had ultimately caused Akako to resign herself to staying in some secluded corner of the venue. Of course, she always had the option of getting up and going to socialize with some of her village mates, but then again, she had to remind herself of how socially awkward she was.

A few hours into the night, she was this close to taking her leave once she was sure that there were no signs of the auburn haired girl showing up to share her company, but then a certain blonde man showed up.

The night hadn't been a total loss because of him.

For quite a while now, Akako had found herself enchanted by the man known as Uzumaki Naruto. The same could be said for other strong people she had come across in the past, but with Naruto, it felt kind of special. Strength had always fascinated her, and she had been interested in Naruto ever since she had heard of his heroics in the Fourth Shinobi World War. Only a truly strong man was able to rally up all those troops from the Five Great Ninja Nations, and even when they were defeated, still go on by him and manage to defeat the enemies that were threatening the world. Of course, Naruto had not done it alone, she was well aware of, but since he was the only one in the village then, she could not help but wonder just how deep his strength ran. Perhaps that was what had caused her to challenge him a little at the entrance to the village gate when she had first encountered him.

Her hand slowly moved to the dagger that lay near her bedside. Akako was never a person to sleep haphazardly; she was always ready for action, as she had always believed a truly capable enemy would not hesitate to attack their target even as they slumbered. As her hand slowly ran over the surface of the cold metal, she could feel herself slowly come alive and her excitement for the day slowly bubbled up in her. Yes, this was it. She only felt truly alive when there was a weapon in her hand, or if she was training or dueling an opponent.

Still, another set of memories prodded at her mind at the feel of the cold, hard steel, and she remembered vividly how she had handed Naruto the wrapped package the previous evening. It went without saying that he had provided enjoyable company, more than she had expected from the likes of him. She had been slightly dismayed when Tokiwa had shown up to whisk him away, but glad nonetheless that she was able to bequeath him with a memento of her own. Perhaps the strange connection she felt to Naruto had been what had driven her to get him such a memento. She couldn't place her finger on what it was exactly, but she was not about to let it bother her, as she had a long day before her.

Getting off slowly from her bed, Akako prepared herself for the long day ahead of her.

_Naruto_

The blonde man woke up with a start, mulling over how he was unable to get adequate sleep the previous night. The events that had happened after the party were still fresh in his mind, particularly Sakura's unreadable expression once she had shown up in front of his house. That had definitely not been a good sign. Normally he would have chosen to sleep longer while pondering over what had happened, but in the state he was currently, sleep was one of the furthest priorities in his mind.

He looked outside the window, where he saw that the sun had just appeared beyond the horizon. By the position of the sun, he had a feeling that it was still the wee hours of the morning. Perhaps most of the villagers were still abed by then, of course still bearing the effects of last night's entertainment. Maybe a walk would do him good and help him clear his mind off things.

As he placed one foot outside his bed, his eyes drifted across the table next to the bed where they came to rest upon a particular wrapped gift. Something clicked in his mind regarding the former night, and a twinge of shame struck a chord in him as he realized that he had forgotten all about Akako's gift to him. Amidst all that had happened the previous night, he realized that he had yet to pry open the gift and express his gratitude properly to the red haired girl.

He immediately got out of bed and got the parcel from where it stood idly on the table, placing it on his lap as he sat on the bed. Now that he ran his hands over the unknown object, he could feel how tough the surface of the wrapper felt. Perhaps it was custom made. Carefully, he unraveled the wrapper of the object, making sure not to tear it anywhere as he banked on the possibility that he would use it at a future date.

In the wrapper was quite a queer weapon. It seemed to be some sort of octagonal shaped weapon, which was brown in color, which in itself wasn't all that queer. What particularly stood out were the kunai protrusions that stood out from several corners of the weapon, and when Naruto's finger accidentally grazed over one of them as he twirled the weapon in his hand, the drop of blood that he saw on his finger was proof enough that he needed to handle this with the utmost care. The kunai like protrusions covered almost the entirety of the odd shaped weapon, and for a moment, Naruto was tempted to try and fiddle around with it, but he managed to restrain himself. He remembered vaguely a similar incident in the past, where he had been on a mission with Team Gai and he had insisted on trying to use one of TenTen's weapons. The brown haired girl had refused vehemently, saying that he would injure him unnecessarily, although with enough pestering Naruto had managed to get her to offer him the weapon for a while. The blonde idiot, in his haste to learn how the weapon worked, had nearly lost his hand according to TenTen's harsh reprimands, and since that day, he had vowed not to handle any sort of ninja weapons haphazardly. They carried a greater risk than he had originally thought.

Carefully and tenderly, he rewrapped the weapon in its wrapper, mentally glad that he had not chosen to rip through the wrapper like he would when he ordered ramen from the shops. Stretching out his stiff and sore limbs, he decided that one of the orders of business that day was to seek out the red haired girl and seek her assistance on how to use the weapon. It did look like quite a unique weapon, and not using it seemed like such a great waste since it was one of the few gifts he had ever received in his life.

He decided to clad himself in a plain white shirt that day and dark pants, and the usual dark sandals that adorned his feet, and as he swung the door open that day, the rays of sun that beat on his skin faintly from the distance were an omen that things would be good that day. A walk would help him organize what he would do that day, plus clear his mind

He had not expected to run into the red haired beauty so soon that day. As he set his foot off the last step and onto the earth, from the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of scarlet. Turning his head to the side, he saw Akako walking silently past the edge of his house, her red hair flailing freely with the slight breeze that was in the air at that moment. She looked really beautiful.

Hastily, he rushed back into the house and grabbed the wrapped weapon from his bedside, and in the next five minutes, he was already a few paces behind the red haired girl. She did not seem to have caught on Naruto's presence behind her, or if she did, she seemed too preoccupied at the moment. Her sword was strapped at her back, and she was clad in a pink top, accompanied by a dark blue pair of shorts that reached just below her waist. On her legs were a pair of mesh stockings and her hair fell freely to her shoulders. She had not tied it up like she had the first time Naruto had met her.

"Hey, Akako!" Naruto greeted behind her, tapping her slightly on the back once he had drawn level with her. The slightly shorter girl stopped in mid motion, surprised that she had not sensed someone get so close to her, but she turned to face the source of that familiar voice. Her red eyes fell on the blonde boy, and with a slight sensation of surprise, she realized that it was the first time that anyone had gotten so close to her without her sensing it. Was this another strange effect brought about by the blonde man? She had not expected to run across him at all that day, but she found that she did not mind him being the first soul she had interacted with that morning.

In his other arm, he was holding the wrapped package that she had given him last night. A small feeling of dejection cropped up in her heart, as she surmised that he was displeased with the present and had chosen to hand it back to her, but she did not mull over these thoughts long as Naruto addressed her once more.

"Where are you going?" His face was beaming with curiosity as he stared eagerly at the red haired girl.

She averted her gaze away from him and looked somewhere to her side. "To the training ground," she responded curtly, before turning back and heading in her initial destination.

Naruto was unfazed by her action, instead amazed by what she had just told him. "So there are training grounds here too?" He said to himself more than her, but when he became aware of the fact that she was slowly increasing the distance between her and him, he found himself conflicted by whether to go with her or go on with his earlier plans of a walk. Folding his arms across his chest, he closed his eyes in thought, weighing the two decisions in his mind. Of course, a walk would be more peaceful, but somehow, after being deprived of action for so long, he found himself craving a bit of it to kick start his day in style.

The first memory of when he encountered Akako resurfaced in his mind, and he remembered how she had nearly lopped his head off when he had first met her. It scared him a little, of course, but he had soon come to realize that first impressions could be very deceiving. His mind was set.

Drawing level with her and walking by her side, he asked her," Can I come with you to the training ground? I won't get in your way, just seeing it is enough for me." He placed his hands behind his head, after making sure that the weapon was well tucked away in his pocket, which, to his surprise, it fit perfectly, looking from the corner of his eye at the red haired girl for any sign of a response, but she said nothing. It was okay though; Naruto had realized that she was this kind of a person at the party last night. He took her silence as a sign of affirmation, before pressing on with the conversation.

"So, how did the rest of the party go last night?" He asked her, but doubtful that she would answer his question. She stayed silent for a while, and Naruto found himself wondering whether he had made the right choice by coming with her that morning, but to his surprise, she finally spoke up," Uneventful, I guess. I didn't linger long after you left, so I'm not sure how the rest of the party went."

Naruto's eyes widened momentarily in surprise as his head was still reeling with the fact that she had actually responded, but he wasted no time in keeping up with his end of the conversation.

"Yeah, about that, I'm sorry I couldn't stay with you longer. If Tokiwa hadn't shown up I would have stayed with you till the end of the party," Naruto said, and he rubbed the side of his head awkwardly in a show of apology. He felt slightly bad that just as things were getting interesting with the red haired girl the former night, Shizuka's assistant had to show up and take him elsewhere.

Akako was taken aback at his impromptu apology, such that she looked to her side to regard his face, where she found herself surprised more by the genuine look of sincerity on his face. She had not exactly given much thought to his disappearance in the heat of things, but never had she expected him to feel a tad bit sorry for something he could not control.

"No, its okay," she found herself saying before she could organize her thoughts properly. "It wasn't especially your fault." As soon as the words escaped her mouth she stayed silent as she had not expected herself to say something like that. It had never been in her nature to speak to people that way, much less an outsider who she did not know well enough. Just what was happening to her?

"Really? Thanks, Akako," Naruto remarked, a hint of awkwardness still present in his voice, after which followed nothing but silence between the duo of shinobi.

"Before I forget, uh, thanks for the present you gave me last night. It was really thoughtful of you," Naruto said, and for the second time that morning Akako found she surprised by the blonde man. Her initial disappointments regarding the fact that he had not spared even as much as a glance at her present all ebbed away, and she found she happy. Suddenly the morning seemed all the brighter, and a small smile made its way onto her features. It was rare for the stoic girl to express her happiness, and even she was surprised at herself for feeling such elation at such a simple matter as her present being appreciated.

Naruto did not miss the small smile that had made its way slowly onto her visage, and he mirrored the same expression, thinking to himself how better the red haired girl looked when she was smiling.

"I'm glad you liked it," she spoke up in a subdued tone, but at this conjecture Naruto raised his hands in protest as he appeared in front of her. She stopped moving as she regarded the man before her, not sure just what expression he had on his face at that moment.

There was a bead of sweat on Naruto's forehead, and a nervous smile on his face, as he tried to find the best way possible to voice the next part of his statement. "Uh, Akako, as much as I love the present, I'm kinda embarrassed to say this, but well I don't know how I'm supposed to use it," he managed to say finally, in a much lower tone than he usually spoke up. Naruto was not exactly the type of person to admit whenever he was experiencing difficulty with something, since he always viewed it as a blow to his pride. He believed in besting everything he could with his abilities.

To his surprise, however, the red haired girl raised a hand to her mouth, where soft continuous sounds came from. It took Naruto moments later to learn that she was giggling. It was the first time he had seen that side of her, he surmised, but he decided not to say anything as she seemed as if she had more she wanted to add on.

The series of giggles didn't last long, and Akako said in an amused tone," Seriously? That's one of the basic weapons used here in Nadeshiko Village. Even untrained kunoichi can use them."

Naruto raised his arms in the air in defeat," Somehow that makes me feel even bad about myself." His shoulders were slouched and there was a depressed look on his face, which Akako found increasingly amusing as the blonde man returned to his initial position beside her. She clasped her hands behind her, and then said in a giddy manner," It's okay. I'll show you how to use it." If she were to be entirely candid with herself, a small part of her was happy that Naruto did not have the slightest inkling how to use the weapon. That would give her an excuse to spend more time with him.

Akako made a corner at the end of a row of buildings, before coming to a stop. Naruto did the same, and before him, stretched out a vast horde of grassland, strew with trees at specific places. It was a sharp contrast from the earth laden ground they were on, and Naruto could not help but be impressed by how much land was allocated to honing shinobi skills. The grassland itself did not seem all that different from the training grounds in Konoha, save for the lack of the trio of posts in the middle of the Leaf Village's training area. It provided a soothing sight to watch.

"Don't just dawdle around there, let's go," Akako said to Naruto, bringing him out of the stupor he was in, and the red haired girl proceeded to walk forward and leave the last bit of earth behind her. Stepping on the grass felt as refreshing as it did every morning.

Naruto followed suit, but before he was about to take his place behind the red haired girl, there was a flash of yellow that crossed just beneath his line of vision. Before he could wrap his head around what it was, he saw the girl ahead of him momentarily disappeared, and there was a resounding thud as someone impacted with the grass. For a moment, Naruto could only see the rear of someone, who had a red skirt; the rest of her body seemed to be planted face first in the ground before her.

The red haired girl appeared beside Naruto moments later, bringing Naruto to the realization that she had just used **Dance Step, **but the expression on her face just then was hardly one of pleasure. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she had a stern gaze in her eyes.

"Don't tell me you were waiting for me here," Akako said in a tone of displeasure.

The girl in front of Naruto got up from the ground, shaking her head from side to side to remove the dust and earth that had settled there, and Naruto realized who it was due to the auburn hair and the familiar figure.

"Heeh, at least I almost caught you this time," Sanyu exclaimed, and when she turned to face the two, Naruto could not help but chuckle in amusement at how ridiculous the younger girl looked.

**A/N: **I could go on writing and writing, but I have a feeling if I continue it might be a little too much information for this chapter. I am really sorry for the lengthy delay in updating this story, I know it has been a little too long since the last update, but well I tried today and here is the update. I hope you guys will love it, thank you for all the support so far, you guys are awesome!


	10. Naruto's Day, Part 2

**Chapter 10**

**Naruto's Day, Part 2**

"You know you really don't have to do the same thing every morning, right?" Akako said to the auburn haired girl who was walking beside her. Following the younger girl's earlier stunt when she had pounced on her, the two were now walking side by side as they headed to the inner parts of the training area. Sanyu was dressed in pretty much the same way Akako was dressed, the lower part of her body clad in a red skirt and the upper part of her body was dressed in a similar manner as most of the kunoichi in the village tended to wear. Save for the gloves and the shoulder guard, her top was a similar color as her skirt, and there was an opening near her chest that revealed some of her sizeable cleavage. The top came to a halt just above her waist, revealing the area around her navel. Unlike the first time Naruto had made her acquaintance, this time she was not carrying her sword.

"Mm-hm," Sanyu responded, before breaking out into a fit of giggles. As she walked ahead with her feet pressing on the grass lightly and the soft sound resounding in the morning air, her hands were clasped behind her back. For someone that had just had her face planted in the dirt a few minutes prior. The auburn haired girl was in a surprisingly good mood that morning. She was humming silently to herself as she walked beside Akako, the sounds of her hums mingling with the sound of the birds chirping in the trees around them.

"But well, you know, the day I can actually manage to catch you are when I'll stop for good."

The red haired girl shook her head, finding herself at a loss on what to do or even say at the moment. For as long as she could remember, each and every one of her mornings ever since she had set out on the training regimen she was on had been marred by the auburn haired girl always leaping at her from out of nowhere and consequentially, her evading each and every attempt. She had found it quite taxing, even wondering where someone got that much energy to engage in something like that at the beginning of the day. Still, as much as she found the younger girl's antics to be vexing at times, to an extent she did appreciate her company. The silver lining was that despite her failed attempts to catch on to her, Sanyu would always accompany her inside, leading to a series of training sprees between the two kunoichi. Training on yourself did tend to grow boring after a while, and there was always the extra added value of having someone to converse with when you were both fatigued.

Behind the two girls, Naruto walked casually, his hands resting at the back of his head. As he watched the dynamics between the two girls before him unfold, in between watching the scenery around him, he realized that he quite enjoyed their company, even if he was not exactly being the most active of participants in it. Besides, the more he considered it now the more he realized that walking alone with the red haired girl would create an awkward silence between them, something he did not want to go through so early in the morning.

It was not meant to last for long however, as a few minutes later, Akako and Sanyu came to a gradual halt, the pace in their steps receding gradually. This prompted Naruto to also stop behind them, the blonde man being able to do it in time before he accidentally bumped into the auburn haired girl who was directly in his line of vision.

"We're here."

This statement brought Naruto out of his momentary daze, and also sent his mind reeling in confusion. When his vision came into focus once more, he noticed that there was a gate ahead of him, but that certainly did not avoid him from noticing the sudden change in terrain that lay past the gate.

Past the metal door that marked the entrance to the new area of land where he and his companions were now, Naruto saw a stretch of grassland that stretched out quite a ways inward. The differences weren't as glaring as with the area they were in now, which when he now thought about it, was quite small in contrast. It didn't seem as if it would be enough for an entire village to train in, now that he thought about it in hindsight. The grass really was greener on this other side, owing to the healthy nature that it carried, giving the place a bright feel of sorts. At various areas and spots of the grasslands, there were trees that were planted, quite similar to most of the area so far. Each of the trees was a different length from the other, but all of them looked as healthy as possibly could be. The area itself seemed to be breathing with life and at the middle of the patch of land, from what Naruto could see, there was a small dip which only seemed to add on to the pleasant looking nature of the terrain.

The blonde boy was rendered speechless for a few minutes, the earlier feeling he had felt when he had seen the first patch of land disappearing and being replaced by an even bigger wave of amazement. His mouth was wide agape, and his eyes had grown to the size of bulbs as he found his breath taken away by the scenery before him.

Unbeknownst to him, the auburn haired girl who was ahead of him was watching him, having stopped in her forward motion and already turning back to look at him. Before they had reached this place, she had somehow expected such a reaction to be solicited from him. The truth of the matter was that the land they were on was divided into two segments, the first segment, being where they were previously, was actually a recreational piece of land where the residents of the village, be it shinobi or civilian could rest if they wanted to. Even kids were allowed to come and play there if they wanted to, so it was similar to a park. The place where shinobi could train or hone their skills was in the second patch of land, and that was where the trio had just reached.

Funny enough, the first time that Sanyu had seen this area, she also had the same reaction as Naruto, so seeing him react that way made her nostalgic. Even then, that did not dampen any of the amusement she felt from seeing his face at said moment. She smiled a little, holding back a giggle that threatened to escape her palate.

Akako paid the two people behind her no heed at first, swinging the jet black gate open. The sound of the gate as it unwound on its hinges reverberated in the air, and as it rung in Naruto's ears it brought him out of his momentary daze for the second time that day. His eyes darted between the field and the auburn haired girl who still had her gaze locked on him, now biting on one of her lips. His vision had narrowed, and finally he seemed to find his voice once more.

"Weren't we in the training area before?" He said, pointing behind him with one hand.

"I didn't say anything of the sort, now did me?" Akako said, finally breaking her gaze away from the blonde haired man as she focused her vision ahead of her and walked ahead of the two.

Naruto realized his voice still sounded like that of someone who was still in a dream, and that was the straw that finally broke the camels back for Sanyu. She giggled a little at first, before taking Naruto by one hand and leading him through the gate.

"Well, this place is-"

The auburn haired girl cut him off, still elated over the reaction she had seen from him. "Don't just stand there. Let's go!"

The blonde man nearly tripped over himself owing to the hasty manner in which he was pulled forward, but he was soon able to regain his balance and allowed himself to be led forward by the girl who had his hand in hers. As they entered the larger field, he let his eyes dart from place to place, this time looking for any outstanding features in the landscape. Nothing in particular stood out…

"You know, this place is actually really swell. I might like it better than what we have at home."

That was a definite plus one for Sanyu, and she smiled to herself, lucky that Naruto was not privy to her facial expression at the moment. The thought made her embarrassed, but then she had to remind herself that she currently had his hand in her own, and she could feel the warmth from him coursing through her hand. Maybe, just maybe…

She pushed the rest of the thoughts away from her mind, taking them to the recesses of her mind, and before she knew it, they had already drawn level with Akako at the middle of the field. She felt a little dismayed as she realized she had to let go of Naruto's hand, but well, there would be other chances soon for as long as she was going to stay in the village.

The red haired woman whom they were following had picked a spot under a tree, and when she turned to look at Naruto and his companion, there was a queer look of sorts on her face. Naruto wondered what she was pondering over, but before he could say anything to her, she stretched out her hand to him.

This gesture confused him, similar to the girl who had just let go of his hand.

"What is it?"

"The weapon, bring it." Akako said, nudging with her hand as she focused her eyes on Naruto. Having her look at him with her scarlet eyes felt a little unnerving, and it was all Naruto could do to look away from her.

"I didn't say anything." He continued, feeling himself growing more and more confused as to her antics. As far as he was aware, the only thing he had mentioned in regards to the weapon was appreciation for the gift, and that happened a few hours earlier. Nothing more, nothing less.

The red haired girl shook her head. "I know, just bring it here." For some odd reason she could not quite place her finger on, Naruto does show of appreciation to her that morning had proved to spurn her enthusiasm, and she found herself want to show Naruto all that he could learn about the weapon as soon as she could. Then again, putting her enthusiasm into words could tend to be quite a tricky thing, especially for someone like Akako.

His mind still reeling with confusion, he shrugged his shoulders, before sinking his hand into his pocket and retrieving the wrapped package from where it lay idle in there. As he placed it in the girl's outstretched hand, he mused on how to an extent this made things transition easier, since he was not exactly sure on how he would approach her in the first place and ask her for her assistance. That morning he had been entirely confident in himself when he thought that it would be an easy thing to get the girl's help, but a few minutes in her company changed all that and he found himself too timid to approach her. Until now, of course.

Unwrapping the weapon, the red haired girl held it carefully and loosely in her hand, placing two of her fingers on areas where no kunai were protruding from that would threaten to prickle her skin. Naruto had to admit that seeing her handle the weapon so carefully like that was definitely praise worthy, he was jittery when he had laid eyes on it in the weapon and his nervousness would have cost him to slip up and injure himself if he wasn't careful enough. Somehow he had managed to emerge unscathed from the entire thing, but right now seeing Akako handle the weapon so well made him feel a little mortified. He didn't let it show on his façade though; there were bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Silently, the red haired woman studied the weapon in her hands, trying to get the feel of it as it twirled freely in her hand for a few minutes longer. Behind the girl, her younger companion had her back rested on the side of the tree that was standing there. She watched Akako girl intently, also curious to find out what the weapon could do. To be honest, this was the first that she had heard of Naruto being given any weapon of sorts, although judging by the situation she figured it had happened at the party that was held last evening, a time where she was held elsewhere by other obligations. A jab of regret hit at her, but she didn't let it weigh her down. What had happened then was a matter of the past, so the only thing that she could do now was to make the most of the time she had before her.

Naruto was about to say something, having grown evidently impatient owing to the manner in which he had his hands crossed at his chest and was tapping at his elbow continuously. Before he could get the words out and voice his displeasure though, his vision was marred by something that was quickly approaching him. His vision was able to make out the form of a kunai, and he only had a moment to get out of the way, although he was not sure exactly how that had happened in the space of an instant. The only thing that he was aware of was the fact that his hands were in contact with the earth below him, plus the sound of the weapon as it whisked above him and away to a distance slightly behind him.

His heart was beating fast and threatened to leap into his mouth just then, and there were beads of perspiration that appeared on his visage. When he looked upwards again at where the red haired girl was standing, he noticed that she had a stoic look on her face as she stared down at him. The weapon was still in her hand, and by the look of things it seemed to have gone back to its original state, although how exactly he could not say.

Slowly, he brought a hand to his face, a bit hesitant as he was not sure what exactly he was going to find there. For a moment, he was afraid that his head had been impaled through, although the sound of his beating heart reassured him that more than anything, he was still alive and well, plus there was no pain from any sector of his body. If there was one thing he was sure of at that moment, it was the fact that he had narrowly dodged a weapon which had nearly run him through. Now, why did that seem like such a familiar feeling…?

"What are you doing?! You could kill someone with that!"

He sounded hysterical from the moment the words left his mouth, plus on the verge of tears, although it sounded more comical than anything, so Akako and Sanyu found it slightly difficult to sympathize with him in his current predicament. That only served to fan the flames, and Naruto felt himself growing increasingly livid with the red haired girl.

"I was only showing you how the weapon worked," Akako responded, in the usual monotone of her voice. One would think that she wasn't inches close to lopping off someone's head earlier, but then again she was the kind of girl who tended to do reckless things in the blink of an eye, with no regrets harbored at all on her side.

Her nonchalant remark just then sent Naruto back on his feet, where he proceeded to march till where the girl stood, closing the distance between them and having his face a few inches away from hers.

"Normally, you use the weapon elsewhere. Normally. Normally!" He made sure to put emphasis on that last word, while boring his cerulean orbs into the girls scarlet ones. His teeth gritted together and he had his arms flailing wildly on his sides in the air beside him, all semblance of fear he felt when interacting with the red haired girl forgotten in that one moment. Ironically enough, this only served to add to the string of comedic reactions that had ensued from him from the moment that he had dodged the kunai, at least to Sanyu. Behind him and the red haired girl, she was laughing heartily, with one hand over her mouth. She did not want to risk having Naruto also approach her and air his grievances as well, since she knew that she wouldn't exactly be as bold as Akako if it came to that.

Luckily for her, Naruto paid no heed to her. The sudden close proximity between the blonde and the red haired girl's face surprised Akako a little, and she felt something tighten in her gut from the feel of his warm breath on her face. Fortunately, it didn't rend her body numb plus also unable to do anything as well, plus also look into Naruto's eyes at the same time. She had never quite noticed it before, but she liked the color of his eyes. They provided a soothing effect, akin to the feeling one would receive if they looked into the sky on a good day or even at the sea.

Silently, she turned her back to the blonde, this time looking in the direction of the tree where the younger girl had her back rested at the moment. Consequentially, the auburn haired girl extricated herself from where she was at the side of the tree, taking her place beside Naruto.

"Watch closely," she whispered into his ear once she was near him, and the feel of her warm breath on Naruto's ear flustered him a little. While he was still on titters about being a source of target practice before, slowly he felt his anger ebb away as he focused his vision to where Akako had the weapon in her hand. From the little he knew of the woman, she tended to be the type of person that did something first then explained it later, but depending on action more than speech. It made her a unique person of sorts, but since Naruto was always up for learning new prospects, he did not mind it much.

This time, he was able to see it crystal clearly. There was a faint glow from the girl's fingers at the point of contact with the weapon. That was quickly followed by the sound of a small _whoosh, _and as if by instinct, Naruto's eyes quickly followed the sound as soon as it had appeared, and he saw the kunai fly off from the edge of the weapon, from the end of a thin rope that was nearly invisible to the naked eye. The kunai soon lodged itself into the tree ahead of it, finalizing the sequence with the sound of a sharp crack.

That….was actually quite impressive.

The girl turned to look at Naruto, "So what you do is inject your chakra into the weapon, point it in the direction you want to fire in. Each of the kunai's protruding out of the weapon's side's act like a point, so you can fire any of them, provided you have the right direction in mind. You don't want to end up stabbing yourself with it. It's a long range weapon, although in case of emergencies, you can always use it to catch your enemies by surprise if you end up caught by any of them."

Naruto nodded his previous aggression to the woman well forgotten by that point and now seeing her in a new light. He had to admit, the weapon was quite handy, plus it did seem like something that even he would be able to handle, as poor as he was in handling weaponry. As he mused over his new discovery, a new idea struck him at that moment, and he smiled inwardly to himself.

"Hey, let me try it out a little."

The girl kept her scarlet gaze on him a while longer at his request, not saying anything for a while, before she decided that it was probably nothing to get you worked over and placing the weapon carefully in his outstretched hand.

Sanyu, on the other hand, was not entirely sure about this new development, and the bright expression that had been on her face melted away a little, being replaced by a look of worry. "Are you sure about this? He might injure himself." She expressed her worry to no one in particular, but still loud enough so that Naruto could hear and perhaps reconsider his decision.

Akako took her place beside the younger girl, giving Naruto space to try out whatever he had in mind. "It's okay. Practice is the best teacher. Beside, in case anything goes awry we'll take care of him here."

Naruto closed his eyes in meditation, trying to replay what he had seen Akako doing a few moments prior. He also made sure to take note of the slightly embarrassing fact of his poor chakra control, although as long as the two girls who were currently in his company were none the wiser to this, he could still save face. Slowly, he began focusing his chakra in the area around his fingers, vaguely remembering his Sage Mode training that had happened ages ago.

The kunai fired, and he felt something light up in his gut at the familiar sound that ensued, which caused him to open his eyes in excitement.

"It's too short."

Well, there went his excitement.

True enough, the kunai had indeed shot out from the source weapon, but it had missed the intended target, and not only by a small margins either. It dangled loosely from the thin rope it was on the end on a few feet off the ground. Naruto pouted, feeling his momentary excitement get extinguished inside him, and Akako sighed. She was the one that had broken the news to him earlier of the weapon falling short, so feeling responsible, she proceeded to near the blonde man. Once she was in front of him, she pointed at the weapon that he still had in the grasp of his hand.

"You have to inject the right amount of chakra in the weapon. Too much will cause it to shoot too far off and you will veer off the intended target, and too little will mean that it will go to near, just like what you just did." True enough, Naruto had held back on the chakra input in his attempt just then, afraid of what would happen if he injected too much all at once. Gladly, he had managed not to get anyone injured, be it him or his comrades.

"Also, if you want to retract the kunai shot out, you have to release the flow of chakra that you have on your hands and the weapon will automatically return to you."

The blonde nodded, consequentially halting the chakra flow that was on his fingers and the having the kunai return to its source. That was at least one thing he could be proud of and boast of, being able to turn the tap off on his chakra. Once all the instructions had sunk into him and he understood them perfectly, he turned to look at the tree once more, prepared to try his luck again. However, unknown to him, the red haired girl had other plans in mind for him at the moment.

She placed one of her hands on the weapon right before Naruto could do anything again, effectively taking his attention. The blonde turned to look at her, wondering if there were any other instructions that she had yet to divulge to him.

"Since I helped you out, I'd like you to help me with something as well."

Leave it to Akako to be as blunt as possible and not beat about the bush with whatever she wanted to say.

Regardless, her sentiment just then piqued Naruto's curiosity and he focused all his attention on the girl. "Sure."

"Be my sparring partner for a while?"

That certainly had not been on his list of possible requests.

Naruto thought that he had misheard for a moment, and he looked at the red head incredulously. "Huh?"

He felt a tap on his opposite side upon his shoulder. When he turned to look, he realized that it was Sanyu who had just done that. "Come on. It will only take a few minutes with Akako, where's the harm in that?"

Oh great, he had not misheard anything at all.

He allowed himself a few minutes to think carefully over the offer, and while he was strongly inclined to turn it down at first, the more the matter lingered in his mind the more he realized that it was not such a bad deal after all. It would be completely detrimental to him if his skills grew rusty over the short time they had on this holiday, he would only have himself to blame. Besides, there was also the matter of what had happened with Sakura the previous night, something that he could not wrap his head around the more he thought of it. She was acting weird, which much was sure, although he was not sure if it was exactly in his place to go and ask her what that was all about. Training would help him keep his mind off things, beside, it always had been able to do that since now, so there was one thing he could trust to never betray him.

His mind was made up.

He turned to the red haired girl, smiling a little as he folded up the sleeves of his jacket to allow himself more mobility. "Let's begin."

_Sakura_

When the pink haired girl had gotten out of bed that morning, after a night that was marred by a severe lack of sleep and lots of tossing and turning in bed, she realized that surprisingly, she was not as exhausted as she figured she would be. This was not exactly a new thing to her. She was used to such a thing from all the sleepless nights she spent at the hospital back in the village, meaning that it wouldn't be all that different at the moment.

Her initial thought as she furled open the curtains of her new abode was to go and see her teammate plus check up on him, but the events from last night with the dark haired woman were still vivid in her mind. She was not sure whether that would be a good idea at the moment, and a small part of her told that she didn't even want to find out.

Shelving the thought altogether since she realized that pandering over it would do her no good when there was a whole new day waiting for her out there, she settled on taking a walk outside, and by sheer coincidence, she bumped into the green haired girl who had grown to be an acquaintance of sorts with her. The number of run ins she was having with Honoka were becoming a tad more than she had initially expected, although Sakura was glad that in this sea of unknown people and unfamiliar faces, there was one soul that she could count as her friend of sorts. It reminded her of her relationship with Ino initially, and the nostalgia put a smile on her face as she said hello to the green haired woman.

By that time, it was nearly afternoon, and the Nadeshiko kunoichi turned out to be on her way to the village library. Somehow the notion of a library made Sakura glad; she had always been enthralled with places with large volumes of books or scrolls where she could stay and read up a little when she wasn't swamped with any duties of any kind. Honoka invited Sakura to tag along with her, citing that it was better than staying idle the whole day without anything to do, a chance that the pink haired girl gladly took.

So here the two girls currently were, in a world where there was hardly any noise picked up on, and the population here considerably sparse. The place was nearly pin drop silent, the only sound registering in the air being that of books as they were moved from place to place, the activity being carried out by both Sakura and Honoka. Once the two had set foot into the book alcove, Sakura had been impressed by the sheer number of books in the vicinity. For a village that was normally off the map, they certainly had their fair share of literature. As it turned out that the green haired girl was also in charge of taking care of the library, in addition to her guard duty at the gate, which luckily, she was not on at that day, Sakura was assisting her in getting the place in order.

The books themselves were in top condition, the lack of dust or cobwebs on them indicating that they had been in use quite recently. As they delved on in their duties, Sakura stumbled upon some books that turned out to contain medical knowledge and skills that were practiced in the village, and as expected, her emerald orbs had lit up immediately on sight of these books.

Her earlier duties forgotten, she immediately settled into one of the sets of furniture that were around, soliciting a cry of protest from the green haired girl on how they had to complete their duties first. Honoka's protests fell on deaf ears, as Sakura had already been enthralled into the book, although the Nadeshiko girl was not all displeased at all by that. They were almost done there, so a few minutes could be spared for a small break.

Appearing over Sakura as she looked at the book she was reading, she started," You like Medical Ninjutsu then?"

That did the trick, as Sakura turned her head behind her to look at the girl who was looking at her curiously. The pink haired girl smiled warmly. "Yeah, it wasn't always something that was there, but well when I first began learning it I realized that it was something I was born for. Weird, right?"

Honoka rested the small of her back against one of the nearby chairs, folding her arms at her chest and looking at Sakura with a smile of sorts on her face. "Trust me, it is weird."

The smile on Sakura's face receded some, something that the green haired girl took note of with slight amusement, but even then she wasn't as terrible as a person to lower the Medic's spirits that much.

"But…." She began again, placing special emphasis on the conjunction, something that caused Sakura's shoulders to perk up," only because it was something that never quite interested me. It turned out to be a _little _too much for my taste. Besides, who needs medicine when you can be out there kicking ass?" She concluded, with a more lively tone than when she had begun plus with a small wink at the pink haired girl.

Now, how could Sakura still remain dismayed after that?

She chuckled a little, placing a hand over her mouth. "What, it's not that hard you know. Besides, maybe you just had the wrong teacher."

Her companion shook her head. "Nuh-uh, trust me, when I say something is not to my tastes, it really isn't to my taste." She paused a little, watching Sakura indulge herself in her new found pleasure, before resigning herself and deciding to continue the rest of the work on her own. After all, Sakura had been under no obligation to help her, yet she had, so Honoka was already extremely grateful to her for that.

As she turned her body to look back at the big pile of books behind her, Sakura spoke up behind her, startling her a little. "Not gonna ask about him today?"

It wasn't exactly rocket science who Sakura was referring to, but even then, her friend was certainly taken aback. She had never expected Sakura to raise the topic of her blonde teammate around her by herself, since she didn't exactly seem as if it was something she couldn't talk about without tripping over her tongue, but more than that, Honoka was slightly impressed by the girl.

She shook her head. "Naah, besides, you trust him to be able to take care of himself, so I'm sure he's okay right now."

Sakura nodded, satisfaction welling into her heart and feeling content for what was possibly the first time that day. She had sorely needed this. "Mmm, and we're practically on vacation here, so I might as well make the most of it, like I'm sure he is at the moment."

"Where do you think he is right now?" Honoka asked out of curiosity, already beginning to sort through the books that required her attention.

The Medic placed a hand underneath her chin, her gaze averted from her book and to her side, not particularly looking at anything there but pondering over something. "Knowing him, he's probably sleeping in right now from having too much fun last night."

_Naruto_

The duel itself was quite short-lived, something that had surprised Naruto, but now that he thought on it, he realized that the only thing that he had to blame were his crappy hand to hand combat skills.

Before the dawn of the battle, Sanyu had surprisingly stepped in between the two, deciding arbitrarily that to even out the odds; they should have a normal taijutsu battle. No weapons or ninjutsu were allowed in the fight. That had come as sort of a relief to Naruto, and he wanted to breathe easy since he had the misplaced belief that the red haired girl's forte was weapon use. Weapon users tended to depend heavily on their weapons, laying waste to any other skills that would help them, a good example of that being Tenten. He could have not been more wrong.

Akako was skilled, extremely skilled that he was actually surprised that he had been able to parry some of her blows before she had worn down on him completely, effectively sealing his defeat. For what was the second time that day, he found himself on the ground, but this time his vision was impeded by the red haired girl who was above him. Well, not exactly standing over him, but the girl was currently on Naruto's midsection, her knees on both sides of the boy as they were planted on the ground beneath her as well. Her fist, which was inches away from Naruto's face, retracted slowly, and Naruto found himself looking into her scarlet orbs for what was probably the umpteenth time that day. He was reminded of the first time that he had fought Sasuke in the academy, but the glaring difference was obvious in the manner that Akako was looking at him.

"Fight's over!" Sanyu declared boisterously from where she stood beside the two, raising a hand in the air.

With that, the red haired girl got herself of Naruto's body, allowing him space to move finally. She had her back turned to him, before turning to look at him from the corner of her eye.

"You did well."

That sentence did not sit well with Naruto, the young man couldn't help but feel that she was just being modest, but he chose not to speak on the matter. Still, he marveled at the girl's skill in movement and combat, wondering if there was a chance that she could turn out to be a better taijutsu practitioner than Rock Lee.

"You sure don't know how to hold back, do you?" He said, as he stood up and took off his orange jacket in order to cool off a little. He had used a little more energy than he had initially intended to, but luckily enough he still had enough left to prance around if need be. Once he took off the jacket, exposing his mesh jacket underneath, Akako, who was still looking at him from the corner of her eye as if trying to assess him, unwittingly caught sight of his well toned abdominal muscles from beneath the net.

The earlier feeling in her gut that she had experienced when she was looking at Naruto's up close face resurfaced, and subsequently, she felt her cheeks heat up, although she could not say why exactly. All that she knew was that she very much liked what she was seeing at that moment. The same could be said for her auburn haired companion beside her; however, Sanyu was not exactly as subtle as Akako when it came to things like this.

"Oh my." The younger girl brought a hand up to her mouth as she marveled at the sight before her. When Akako turned to look at her companion, she took note of the tresses of a blush that had appeared on both her cheeks, but chose not to say anything in regards to it. Was the same thing happening to her at that moment?

That little remark caught Naruto's attention, and as oblivious as he always was to such situations, he turned to look at the younger girl, his jacket still in his hands. "What is it?"

Sanyu's blush deepened, and Akako felt the stirring in her chest persist even more from seeing the man's well endowed body up close. All of a sudden, the younger girl felt her words get caught in her throat. When she finally managed to speak, her tone was strangely subdued and timid this time, which was actually a new for her in comparison to her usual boisterous personality. "Ah, it's nothing."

The blonde man bobbed his head to the side. "I see."

His stomach then grumbled at that point, releasing a low guttural sound that was also picked up on by his two female companions.

"Ah crap, I didn't eat anything this morning!" He said in a panicky tone, bringing up his hands to his head and having a worrisome expression on his face.

He turned to look at the red haired girl, ready to implore her permission to leave for just a short while, but the red haired girl beat him to it.

"You can go get something to eat in the town."

That did make things easier. Originally, he was of the idea that they would insist on having him stick with them for another round, but seeing that they were willing to let him off this easily came as a relief.

He let his jacket fall to the ground limply, before mouthing a quick appreciation and taking off in the opposite direction, his spirits rejuvenated a new.

Sanyu took note of the piece of clothing lying in the grass below, and immediately moved to call out to the man who was swiftly heading away from them. "Hey, Naruto! You left your jacket behind!" She said in a high tone, with one hand over her mouth and the other one in the air as she waved fervently at the man to come back.

"Sorry, take care of it for me! I'll be back as soon as I get something to eat!"

The auburn haired girl lowered her hand, a bit perplexed as to how events had turned out, but with the prospect of the man coming back, there was still something that she could look forward to. She bent forward and picked the jacket from where it was laying on the grass, before cradling it in her arms and getting the general feel of it.

"It's kinda warm."

_A few minutes later, the town_

"I did say that I was going to get something to eat, but where am I supposed to even start looking?" Naruto asked himself as he walked through the town, with his hands resting on the back of his head.

He was currently in a more populated section of the town. All around him, the place was bustling with activity, and he felt the contrast from the quieter place he was in before. Above him the rays of the sun beat down on his skin, causing him to feel his clothes gradually soaking up, and he felt lucky that he had left his jacket behind, although a small part of him wished that he was back in the cooler terrain he was in before.

Deciding to hasten in his search for food, he quickened the pace in his steps, ready to mix into the crowd. Perhaps he would stumble upon a food stand or something similar along the way, much like the dango stands that were back at the village. At that moment, however, a small sound registered in his ears, and he stopped in his tracks.

Looking around him, he let his eyes scour the area, looking for the source of sound. From the moment he had picked up on the sound, there was a certain familiarity to it that he could not quite place his finger on, although he was sure that he had heard it before.

She was seated near one of the walls of a building nearby. The building itself was a wooden structure, and there was an umbrella a few meters off the ground that shielded her from the worst of the sun's rays. The umbrella itself was blood red, a stark contrast to the clothes the girl was dressed in. Her kimono was creamy white, with flower imprints on it that were a similar color to her umbrella. It started from an area a bit below her shoulders, exposing a sizeable amount of her wonderful cleavage. From there it proceeded to flow seamlessly downwards her body, before stopping short above her knees, parting into two in the area above there. This allowed a view of her creamy legs, which were slender and actually pleasant to look at.

The girl was playing a stringed instrument of sorts, and as her fingers skillfully weaved through the musical device, the air was filled with the pleasant sounds of her music. Naruto wondered how on earth no one was paying attention to her with her wonderful music, something that looked as if it would even soothe a baby to sleep.

Before he could find the answer to that trivial question, however, the music came to a halt, something that caught him slightly by surprise. Her eyes were closed as she was playing, and when she opened them slowly, her dark orbs melded with his blue eyes. Realization dawned on Naruto just then. There was no way he could forget those eyes.

"You're the dancer from last night."

**A/N: **Updates, updates! Now again, this chapter was actually supposed to be longer than this, and was also supposed to be up a few days ago, but well stuff happened, although at least I was able to get it out before the new week started! So, that should count, right?:P Before I bore you all with my babbling, I'll stop there, and hope you enjoy the chapter immensely!

Ja ne!


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